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Tohatsu 5hp four stroke - kicks out of reverse

Justindoyle

New member
My Tohatsu five horse four stroke kicks out of reverse. I push it into reverse firmly and it’ll go in for half a second and kick right back out. I took apart the lower housing to see if the clutch was rounded out, but it looked fine. I’m wondering if it could just be because of the shift rod? Is it possible the rod just got unaligned and that’s causing it to kick out of gear?
 
Could be. The MFS 4/5/6 A/A2/B/C has a shift shaft coupler. Takes a 10 mm socket through a grommet in the exhaust housing. Make sure that's properly adjusted.
 
Could be. The MFS 4/5/6 A/A2/B/C has a shift shaft coupler. Takes a 10 mm socket through a grommet in the exhaust housing. Make sure that's properly adjusted.

oh thanks! How do I make sure it’s adjusted properly though? I know exactly where you’re talking about just not sure what will indicate if it’s out of alignment
 
As always, full info is in your Factory service manual, available from any dealer, including me. The A series manual is out of print, but I can get you a reprint. PM me for more info.

Understand that the upper section clicks into 3 different detents at the shift handle. These should coordinate with the 3 settings in the LU. So you want to sunchronize the shift rod with the cam rod. If both the LU and handle are in N, and you tighten the coupler, you are usually OK. if not, and it pops out of R, you need to get the LU a little further into R and then tighten. The method in the manual has you have the coupler free, set the cam rod fully in R (down all the way), then set the shift lever in R, and then tighten the coupler.
 
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