TOPIC: First Fire 66 Merc 1100

Ok, so I managed to wait, what, almost 2 weeks before attempting to see if she runs.
She pretty much fired right off! I mean, like, if you count the first two 10 second cranks.
I barely noticed them.

The lower carb was leaking fuel for a few, then settled down.
Pumped water well and ran cool (was using a muff)
Reminds me, I gotta go turn the water off. Excuse me for a moment.

Ok, so that is the good news.

There seemed to be a slight variance in prop shaft spin, as tho it was slightly out.
There doesn't appear to be any appreciable play when attempting to move the shaft by hand.
I know we don't set tolerances by hand so, the information is probably irrelevant.
Should mention, do not have a prop, so ran without it.
Safer anyway.

Also, I could not, for the life of me, find the neutral setting.
Seemed whenever I got close to it there was significant clatter in the gear case.
Shifted well from forward to reverse.
Just no getting in between.
Tried to lower the rpms to a less aggressive idle and had the same result.
Now, one thing I hate to admit is, I did not check the lube in the case before firing her up.
I feel pretty stupid and over anxious at the moment.
I will do that before attempting to fire her up again.

Anybody have any ideas where neutral went?

A buddy of mine, thought he heard some noise around the area where the drive shaft would connect to the power head.
A concern?

Also, anyone have a digi-scan of the 1966 manual relevant to the 1100 and the parts pages? I'd be willing to trade scans of the earlier manual (up to 64) and parts pages.
I almost have everything scanned parts wise.

The sun is going down so I had better go put her away.

lar

Hey lar, I'm no Merc expert, but have a suggestion and a question.
1 - prop shaft "variance". Do you mean it seemed to wobble? I know you stated that it felt tight, no play in the shaft right? If it were me, I'd beg, borrow, rent, or steal (just kidding) a dial indicator to check the prop shaft for trueness. (Not bent) If it IS bent, it will knock the bearings out of your gearcase in no time. It could have been an optic illusion, but better safe than sorry.
2 - Neutral. Are you using the controls to shift, or moving the lever on the motor by hand? I know that on my 62 Merc700, neutral was a very finite point of movement on the lever on the motor. Would be very hard to find without using the controls, especially with the motor running.

The control box was only hooked up for the electrical and the ability to start it.
I was attempting to shift the motor by hand:
reaching into the lower cowl and trying to move the lever into place.
Finite indeed, was not able to get it there and like I say, experienced gear clatter in the case when getting close.

As far as the shaft goes, could be optical. I dunno, I do have an astigmatism. I think my difficulty is, I try to find all the wrong stuff, before I go out there and really mess stuff up.
Could be PAR: pessimistic anal retentive-ism.
Could be nothing.

I will see what I can do to find a dial indicator.

I do appreciate all of the input

lar

Lar:

Try shifting the linkage from forward gear to neutral with out the motor running. Pull linkage all the way forward then start pushing rear ward, you should feel a distict bump going into neutral, then check the prop shaft to see if it free wheels both ways. Some are dificult to move at times, I use a screw driver to push on the shift lever.

Darrell

Darrell
Thanks for the tip, I will try it out.
lar

Lar,
And don't panic when you can't shift to Reverse with the motor shut off. They have square cut shifting dogs that require the prop shaft to be rotating to shift into Reverse.
If you have someone slowly rotate the prop shaft as you apply pressure towards Reverse at the sliding link you will see that it will shift into Reverse okay, BUT,...Without a control cable attached it is very likely that the shift shaft will continue past Reverse until it impacts the crankcase cover and consequently you will need to drop the lower unit to return to proper position with the shift shaft as the cam in the lower unit is not made in a way that allows the plunger to 'climb' back up the shift cam clockwise.
Never start these beasts without control cables unless you have it already in Forward gear and make no attempts to shift the beast while running until a control cable is attached.
Otherwise it WILL jump into Forward and potentially cause damages.
Never try to shift into Neutral or Reverse while running on the muffs without the control cables attached or the beast will easily shift right past Neutral and slam into Reverse with extreme gear grinding sounds as the prop shaft is likely still free-wheeling from Forward gear and the impact at Reverse can be risky business.

Side note:
When a boat is still going forward in the water rather quickly, even though you are in Neutral, and you shift into Reverse to 'brake' the forward movement,...Severe gear damage can occur if you are using a heavy stainless steel prop as it is still spinning forward with the movement of the hull and the attempt to reverse its direction of travel is like trying to reverse the direction of travel instantly of a heavy flywheel - something is gonna give and it will either be the driveshaft just above the pinion gear or the gear teeth themselves.
Thom