86 Johnson 90hp shifting into reverse problem

[mike8282]

I've been having a problem getting my outboard to shift into reverse once I get the boat into the water. Once I shift into reverse it sounds like the gears are grinding but if I push into full throttle in reverse it engauges. This only happens when I take the boat out to the lake, if I fire it up with muffs on it shifts perfectly into reverse with no grinding. Could this be the back pressure of the water causing the rpms to drop to low for the gears to properly inguage?

 

[noelm]

Re: 86 Johnson 90hp shifting into reverse problem

first things first, have you had the cable adjustment checked? when you are in the water, there is load on the prop, whereas out in the open there is no load at all, it may just appear to be fully in gear. Check the adjustment first off, easy to do and may fix the problem.

 

[mike8282]

Re: 86 Johnson 90hp shifting into reverse problem

Yea, I recently took the boat into a marine shop and they adjusted everything. I had this problem before I took the boat in and I'm still having the same problem. Which cable do I adjust to fix this?

 

[GatorMike]

Re: 86 Johnson 90hp shifting into reverse problem

Sounds to me like the clutch dog is not fully engaging. You are going to eventually round off the edges of the clutch dog and reverse gear if you don't get it fixed.

The last time you dropped your lower unit to replace the water pump impeller you didn't happen to rotate the shift rod did you? If you did you need to readjust the shift rod height.

 

[GatorMike]

Re: 86 Johnson 90hp shifting into reverse problem

Actually you can do worse than that. You can break the pinion gear off your drive shaft if you are reving up too much before the gears engage. I'm not one of the mechanics but I am speaking from experience. I had the same problem and ended up snapping the pinion gear right off.

 

[mike8282]

Re: 86 Johnson 90hp shifting into reverse problem

I figured out the problem, I adjusted the cable setting and now the outboard shifts smoothly. Thanks for the posts