Shift shaft disconnect for lower unit

[FranksMerc]

On a Mercury 115 HP '94, do you have to disconnect the shift shaft at any point before dropping the lower unit? Thanks in advance.

 

[Walker]

Re: Shift shaft disconnect for lower unit

Nothing to disconnect. The hard part is re-installing the L/U. You must have the control box and the L/U both in the same gear. I believe the manuals recommend reverse, but I like to do the in neutral.

 

[The Marine Doctor]

Re: Shift shaft disconnect for lower unit

The reason it is done in rev is so you can turn the driveshaft via the prop to align the splines.<br /><br />TMD

 

[greasemonkeyozi]

Re: Shift shaft disconnect for lower unit

I had just dropped my L/U a couple days ago, I just left it all in nuetral. I had almost no problem getting it all lined up, just make sure your water tube lines up right, thats the biggest train wreck. I had to stick mine up in the motor and let it hang, line my L/U shaft up in the motor, turned my flywheel just a tad at a time so the crankshaft and driveshaft lined up, lined my water tube up to the water pump housing with my finger, and KAZAM!!! Just slowly tightned all my nuts at a time, everything went well. <br /> Just dont decide to swick gears for any reason in the process.

 

[FranksMerc]

Re: Shift shaft disconnect for lower unit

Thanks!

 

[P.V.]

Re: Shift shaft disconnect for lower unit

Guys, the "standard" procedure is to have the control box in forward, remove the gearcase, do the required service, be sure it is still in forward when reinstalling the gearcase back on, use a small needle-nose vise grips (as an example to help align the shift shaft splines) and reinstall the gearcase. Checking for correct shifting prior to tightening ALL of the nuts. With the control box in forward, the prop should NOT rotate backwards, neutrel should be neutrel, reverse should be ..... reverse.