Why forward gear?

[Plainsman]

Could someone please explain to me the reason/importance for have the engine in forward gear when dropping the LU on a 1976 115HP engine per the Mercury service manual?

Thanks,
Eric

 

[Laddies]

Re: Why forward gear?

Eric, great to hear from you, the idea was you must have it in gear to reinstall and the early engines without a rev. gear that rachets could twist the upper shift rod if shifted into rev. when not runing so it was easy to select fwd. I hate to use fwd as it can jump by and when reassembled won't shift right so I alway use rev. to do mine. Bob

 

[Plainsman]

Re: Why forward gear?

Thanks Bob! I was hoping you'd be the one to answer the question.
So put it in reverse instead of forward. I will make the change in the manual so I don't forget.

 

[ufm82]

Re: Why forward gear?

I'd always thought it was so you could eaily rotate the engine to align the splines on the driveshaft. That's always why I left the engine in gear- I'd rotate the flywheel by hand to re-engage the driveshaft into the bottom of the crankshaft. If it's in neutral the driveshaft would just spin along with the crank and not go back into place. I should have known there's a real reason why it's done that way. Go figure.

UFM82

 

[Chris1956]

Re: Why forward gear?

Plainsman, I always put my '77 Merc 1500 into neutral when dropping LU. It is easy to turn the flywheel by hand to aline the driveshaft splines, and neutral has no play in it to mess up the shift shaft to upper shift shaft synch.

 

[j_martin]

Re: Why forward gear?

Plainsman, I always put my '77 Merc 1500 into neutral when dropping LU. It is easy to turn the flywheel by hand to aline the driveshaft splines, and neutral has no play in it to mess up the shift shaft to upper shift shaft synch.

Yep. same here