My father bought this motor in 1959 and we used it for a few family fishing trips to Moriches Bay every spring/summer through the 1960's and not very much thereafter. I have not used it in many years and prior to trying this year, I cleaned it up a little (the hardest part was the hose to the tank), checked and cleaned up the plugs (they are old), put some fresh gas/oil in the tank (I had cleaned out the tank and the carb before putting it away the last time I used it) and it started right up.....shifts into fwd and reverse and turns the prop. The only thing I noticed was that it was a bit harder than I remembered to turn the throttle. So, I unscrewed the screw that holds the throttle handle onto the end of the steering handle and expected to pull it off to see what was binding. Instead, the screw fell down and the white throttle handle and a spring popped off. I cleaned the handle, put some fresh lube under it and tried to reassemble it. But it seems that I can not push the handle on far enough so the hole in the handle lines up with the hole in the throttle rod underneath - it seems that the spring can not be compressed enough to line up the holes. (There does not seem to be any slack in the rod under the handle and if I put it together without the spring, everything seems to work fine and smooth). What am I missing? I'd appreciate any thoughts.