Impeller Replacement Questions

[BRIELLY]

This is the 1st time I'm doing an impellar on my merc 135 v6 and a few things have me stumped. I got the lower unit off but the plastic water tube?? looks very strange to me. It doesn't seem to be held on by much (its loose and wobbles around) and it is off center with the metal tube. In the manual it looks like it should have come down with the impellar cover and the rest of the lower unit but instead it is still on the upper unit. Please see picture. http://www.northeastsurf.com/merc_002.jpg Should it be this way or is something very wrong?

My other question is in regards to reinstalling the lower unit. The clymer manual says shift the gear housing into forward gear. How do I do this and where is the location of the guide block pin?

They also mention gm silicone sealer. Can I substitute one of the permatex sealers? Any help would be appreciated as I'd love to get this boat in the water one of these days.

[tsubaki]

The plastic tube is incorrectly placed and probably the whole problem, done gone this far might as well replace it all, weather the impeller is bad or not. Most likely the last person that was in there (thought he) aligned it and tightened the bolts up to pull everything together.
The shifter in a given location is to be able to loosen the fitting holding the shift rod and/or a threaded pin usually located front center of the powerhead, below the carbs intake.
Do not rotate the shift rod once disconnected from the powerhead, this is the threaded adjustment.
The new pump or kit may come with a couple of adaptors for different tube sizes.
Installing the new impeller and aligning the key is easier done by rotating the prop or shaft and sliding the housing in place at the same time. Find some long shouldered bolts, cut the head off, thread into the foot where the ones for the pump goes and put it together.

When reassembling you may have to rotate the prop to align the splines of the shaft to the powerhead and slightly engage or disengage the shifter to realign to tighten. Sealers (if required) like Permatex will be fine.
Don***8217;t be afraid to remove the foot and recheck tube alignment before finishing bolting together, better to feel comfortable instead of wondering about it.
Reassemble with Antiseize or the like.

[tsubaki]

[BRIELLY]

The more i thought about it that situation makes sense. The previous owner must have forced the plastic tube in that position and actually jammed it on the metal tube when he retightened it.

The manual has me confused because it says shift the gear housing into forward but your saying the mechanism to shift it is actually in the powerhead?

[tsubaki]

I gotta check on yours, I mainly fool with Johnson/Evinrude stuff.
Your year should be an 86-90.
The shifting to forward is the assembly/disassembly purpose in order to get to the bolt/key that disconnects the shift rod.
How did you take that picture and not disconnect the shift rod linkage?
And FERM, you can chime in anytime!!

[spareparts]

You need to shift into fwd so you can keep the shift rod in time. the shift rod rotates, unlike a johnrude that goes up and down. The shift rod is splined, but it can go back on in the wrong position, throwing the shifting off. If your dealing with an ouboard, you can get it beyond the normal shift range and get it completely out of wack. When I replace the impeller( or install a lower unit for any reason) I hold the lower unit from the port side, meaning the prop would be by my right foot. With the lower unit in that position, rotate the prop shaft by pushing down on the prop with your right hand, spinning the prop counter clockwise as viewed from the rear. It should turn the drive shaft. It should spin the drive shaft counterclockwise as viewed from the top. this should indicate you have the shift rod in the correct position. If its not in the correct position, rotate the shift rod(it may take a pair of pliers, i use needle nose visegrips) slightly till it goes in gear, you will have to spin the prop shaft while repositioning the shift shaft. Go ahead and play with the shift shaft a little and get the feel of it, its spring loaded and will need to know how to put it in fwd, your going to knock it out of gear at least once while you're putting the lower unit back on, if the prop spins the wrong way, it will knock out of gear. What you are looking for is three positions of the shift shaft, fwd, neutral, and reverse. If you are looking down on the shift shaft you need to assign clock positions relative to the lower unit with12 o'clock being the front of the lower unit, prop shaft end being 6 o'clock. fwd gear would be in the 12 o'clock position, nuetral will be around 10:30, and reverse will be 9:00. You will have to keep spinning the prop shaft counter clockwise to get it to lock into fwd, clock wise to get it to lock in reverse. If you have fwd in all positions, keep rotating the shift shaft till you find neutral, you can get it too far out of position. it sounds confusing but if you play with it a little, you'll get the hang of it. Once you have the shift rod in fwd, slowly install the lower unit back up in the center section, the plastic water tube(installed on the water pump housing) should guide the brass tube into place, when you get close, pay attention to the shift shaft alignment, you may have to have a freind to wiggle the shift shaft in the center section to align with the shift shaft in the lower unit. I can sometimes hold the lower unit in place with with my right knee while aligning everything, when it gets real close, rotate the prop counter clockwise with your right hand while pushing up on the lower unit to align the drive shaft splines, when it goes all the way up, put a nut on one of the studs, and snug it up, don't tighten everything just yet, shift the shifter back from fwd, into nuetral and check it by spining the prop with your hand, then put the shifter into reverse and spin the prop to confirm you have reverse, then back to fwd just to amke sure everything is ok. If all the shift positons are correct, and everything is lined up, procede with installing all the hard ware and tighten it all up. Make sure you put some grease on the drive shaft splines, shift shaft splines, and some on the rubber bushing the brass water tube goes into, it will make everything go easier. If you can/'t get it together, set it down, adn walk away from it for a short while, come back to it and start from scratch on the shift rod positoin and try again.

[BRIELLY]

Thanks for all the replies. I replaced the impeller today and will attempt to put it all back together tomorrow. Luckily the impeller kit came with a new platic tube since the old one was never aligned properly and got jammed onto the metal tube. Wish me luck.

[tsubaki]

spare, thanks for pulling that out, it's been a year since doing the Mariner and I just couldn't remember what we did. Naturally the book is somewhere for safe keeping and there was nothing on the net.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Been awhile since I dropped mm MERC, couldn't remember how everything went together. Then again I normally just wing it and put it together how it looks best. Another thing to keep in mind when putting the foot on though is you have to line up the shift rod to the shift shaft on the lower when your sliding it all together. And some years have a shift rod that telescopes as my 95 does this. Once I got it back together I had to use a pair of needle nose pliers and re-engage the shift shaft back in to the rod.

[BRIELLY]

Got it done today. Apparently there are two different shift types -cam and ez shift. I figured out that I had the ez shift model which installs in neutral instead of forward. We had to just rotate the flywheel just a tad and everything went together relatively easy. The shift shaft has quite a bit of play so that was the hardest part to keep lined up. Thanks again