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Any tips to get the pinion nut back on?

T

Tdavenport

New member
1983 50 hp E50BELCTA

The pinion went bad. Got a new one, and yes before you ask it is shimmed to proper tolerance. Next problem, can't get the darn locking nut back on to hold the pinion gear in place. Any tips or tricks?

Thanks in advance
 
Turn the lower unit up side down. Then get a long needle nose pliers, put the nut in them and put on drive shaft. Then hold nut and rotate drive shaft to get nut started. Once started, tighten normally.
 
The factory offers a special tool for that job.------I have one.------But I also use more traditional methods too.
 
Two weeks agoo he said he is using a gear set from " gear pros "------Can you tell me if you shim those pinions the same way as using the factory shim fixture ??
 
Long needle nose pliers finally worked. I think I tried it a hundred times. Also I’m a she not a he. No big deal, just clarifying. Also the forward and reverse gears were in great shape. Main problems were shift fork was broken and the pinion was chewed up. But not randomly. Near the top of the pinion it had a perfect “ledge” scored into it. About 1/8” deep and 1/8 inch wide. Not sure if the shift lever failure cause it or not.

As far as Gear Pros: I ended up only using the pinion. The dog clutch didn’t match the splines on my prop shaft. The one I took off was in good shape. I also didn’t use the new forward and reverse gears since mine were in good shape and the bearings were in good shape. The pinion when measured with digital calipers was identical to the one I took off. When I went thru the shimming procedure however there was a difference. I didn’t take any measurements using the old pinion for shimming purposes. But I was able to get the new pinion shimmed to spec according to the shimming tool (bar and collar). My gut feeling is that the pinion was shimmed improperly and that contributed to the pinion failure. I would not recommend gear sets from Gear Pros.
 
With original pinion being damaged a wear pattern was transferred to other gears. Now you have a mismatched set and gears will be short lived . Hate to discourage you but need to install all the the gears or you will in fact be redoing this all over again..
 
I got a cone shaped wood drill and a long piece of wood bored a hole and put the nut tight in hole .....about 18" long . ....works good
 
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