Honda 99 no reverse

"I have an older (about 12

"I have an older (about 12 years old) Honda 9.9 with very little use and reverse will not work. It was working fine and then sat for a year and now reverse doesn't work. I'm hoping an adjustment or sticky linkage could resolve this issue. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Chris."

Not sure how much help I'l

Not sure how much help I'll be as I don't know this particular motor but I'll ask this anyway. Is it a tiller motor or remote control?

It's a tiller motor. Pull

It's a tiller motor. Pull start.

C.

"Ok, bear with me. These quest

"Ok, bear with me. These questions will probably help anyone looking to diagnose the problem.

When you shift to forward, it goes into forward ok?
And when you shift it back to nuetral it goes back into nuetral ok?"

"Yes that's correct. From

"Yes that's correct. From neutral to forward and back works great. The shifter goes back (reverse) like it should but the transmission doesn't engage reverse. Or reverse has a problem, I can't tell which."

"Ok. I don't know what cou

"Ok. I don't know what could cause the transmission not to shift to reverse after just sitting but maybe it was getting ready to give you a problem just as you parked it. The fact that it shifts to forward and then back to nuetral means that the linkage is still completely hooked up and hasn't come apart externally. So, it may just be out of adjustment.

The best advice I can give you at the moment would be to go to the top of this page and click on "topics" then "Honda" then scroll down to the date 01-25-10 and the topic "9.9 kicks out of gear".

Read that thread and see if any of that rings a bell. The guy that is answering, Mike, is who I would ask if I had a Honda question as he really is the "hondadude".

Mike's advice on these things is pretty much golden and he explains very clearly and accuratly in that thread how to check and adjust the shift linkage. My only concern would be if your motor were a different model but you should be able to tell if the directions make sense as you look at the items he describes.

Check out that adjustment and see if that doesn't get 'er goin'. In the meantime maybe Mike or one of the other gurus here will read your post and provide some additional suggestions. Good luck."

"Thanks for the advice. I&#39

"Thanks for the advice. I've read through the post you suggested and will try what they recomend. Their's is a little different in that they had the motor apart which could lead to a miss adjustment during re-assembly, where mine's never been apart. Thanks for the suggestion.

Chris."

"Yeah, I would agree that your

"Yeah, I would agree that your case is a bit different but you have to start somewhere and checking the adjustment is the first step to determining if you need to go deeper.

These are pretty simple little transmissions and are easy to repair if you catch any damage early.

I've seen the shift rod get out of adjustment when the jam nut gets loose and the adjuster backs off. With any luck, that's what happened to yours. If not, you may have an internal issue but it should be easy to get repaired since you caught it early."