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1st motor, think I screwed up.

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MikeJ22

New member
Been working at this for a couple days now and I've come to a dead end. I purchased a motor that presumably runs fine - 1996 Merc 6.0 - on advise from others on another forum I went ahead and bought a new impeller before testing and installed that myself. Went fairly smoothly, except upon reassembly I couldn't get it to come out of FWD, it wouldn't shift into neutral or R. I disconnected the shift rod and assured everything was working correctly up top - it was. I found I couldn't shift the lower by moving the rod up and down. Could just feel it banging against the metal.

I put it in FWD before I pulled the lower and did everything according to the manual. This was not a problem prior to me pulling the lower initially to swap impellers, so it happened during the swap. I drained the oil from the lower and the rod was just sitting above all of the gears and everything, seems I pulled it free somehow. I need to figure out how to re-assemble my shift rod/cam in the propeller housing thing(not sure of the actual term).

Hard to get a good photo down the shaft but:

vfxd4gZ.jpg

This wasn't actually connected to anything after I drained the oil. was just rattling around on top of the gears. Not really sure where it goes.

Y9xGue2.jpg

Any help much appreciated.
 
Your best bet is to take the lower unit apart to re-install that part.----------That part is supposed to stay in the gearcase.--------Proper manual always helps.
 
Couldn't find anything in the manual about taking apart the lower entirely - there are instructions to drop the lower out, and to remove the prop, but I didn't see anything that went any deeper than that. I was hoping I'd have just been able to slide it back in.

Is the lower unit particularly complex or difficult? I have moderate wrench-ability and generally at least attempt things on my own before taking it to a mechanic - unless I know I'm over in my head.
 
You have made a rookie mistake and you WILL have to take the lower unit apart to fix it.

Here is a diagram of the lower unit and I will explain here what happened (mostly so you understand what is going on and what happened when you pulled the shift shaft out too far.

small merc lower.jpg

If you have a look at parts 48 and 51 on the diagram, that is a pin and a spring that ultimately moves things around to change gears.

The "spring loaded pin" extends out the front of the shaft (inserts inside of it) and rests up against that wedge on the bottom of the shift shaft. As the shift shaft moves up/down the tip of that pin rides along the wedge moving it in/out of the shaft which in turn moves the clutch dog between the gears and neutral. So that's what is "happening" in there.

When you completely removed the shift shaft, the spring drove that pin all the way to the front of the gear case. So it's still in the shaft (a little bit), but butting against the case where that "wedge part" of the shift shaft "should be".

There is enough spring pressure on that pin, combined with the lack of leverage in there, that you will NEVER get that wedge back where it belongs without some disassembly (I have occasionally done this myself and know there is no way to do it easy).

If your manual does not cover tearing down the lower unit then you will need another manual. With reasonable mechanical abilities you can tear down a lower unit. The biggest challenge may be getting the bearing carrier to move (Merc in their wisdom threaded this part) it does tend to seize in place.

If you are going this route (tear down yourself) I would get new seals/o-ring and replace them while I had it apart. It certainly wouldn't hurt and the little bits/pieces are cheap enough.
 
Much appreciated guys. Slept in today, gonna hit the manual back up as soon as I finish some coffee and see if I can't make some progress today. Might just take it to the shop though and get all of the seals replaced like suggested since I don't have that on-hand and its Sunday. Really just depends on what they wanna charge me to do it.

Spent too much time trying to make it work rather than looking into a proper solution (lower tear down) Sucks that it kinda went from a basic impeller change to a worst-case scenario real quick - but completely my fault.
 
Will have to let you know when I get around to it. Got called into work today, unfortunately so gonna have to put it off another day at least.

Assuming the bearing carrier is #62? Was hoping I wouldn't need anything more than a puller and basic hand tools to get everything out. Certainly hope I don't need to replace an $80 part when it inevitably gets opened up.
 
Not too bummed out! Just a little I guess, its more of a $$ thing than anything - recently bought my first boat and I'm in the process of restoring/modding it.

Spent $300 my wife didn't want me to spend on this motor. She's never gonna let me live it down if I gotta spend another $200-300 in the shop.
 
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