No gear oil --- stuck in reverse!

[Ron]

My Honda BF50 is stuck in reverse gear. No matter if the remote control is in reverse, neutral, or forward, the engine is in reverse. The cables is moving correctly, and the plastic arm in the engine, which the cable attaches to, is moving correctly. From the plastic rocker (shifter?) arm it moves a vertical shift shaft that goes down to the lower unit. I believe the problem is in the lower unit. As part of my troubleshooting I checked the lower unit gear oil. ALMOST NONE! I removed the vent (top) screw first, nothing came out. When I removed the lower screw a watery oily mess drained out, but only a little bit. Interestingly, no metal particles.

I have not investigated further, but I am afraid I will need a new lower unit or at least new gears, etc. I have been studying the Honda Service manual. It seems that when you move the shifter the vertical shaft pushes a 'pusher rod' that moves the gears horizontally back/forth. The vertical power shaft is always spinning in the same direction and the reverse gear is on one side of it and the forward gear on the other. So, my guess right now is that without gear oil, it heated up and fused together or something like that, so that now when I shift it cannot disengage from the reverse gear.

Now my question is what happened to the gear oil? I'm not sure how to check where it is leaking from. I was thinking many of the gaskets, etc. are cheap, so just replace all of them?

Of course, I may need to buy a whole new lower unit! I have not yet found a reliable and knowledgeable Honda mechanic, and here I am in Miami where there is a year-round boating season! You would think there would be good marinas/marine mechanics around who would work on a Honda.

My wife suggested I could dock and do everything in reverse and worry about the engine later The problem, of course, is if you cannot change gears it is hard to slow the boat down before you crash into the dock stern first.

The Honda causes me nothing but maintenance headaches and maybe now some angina. The only upside is I've become a much better mechanic.

[mod]ModEdit: Moving to P&T ~fc[/mod]

[Rich Plumb]

I suspect that you have two seperate issues:

1. The gear oil was contaminated and most of it lost from the lower unit requiring disassembly, cleaning and reassembly with new seals.

2. The shift dog or "clutch" in the lower unit moves a beveled double-ended gear fore and aft that gives you forward, neutral and reverse. This shift dog is moved in one direction by that push-rod that you mentioned. It is moved in the other direction by internal spring tension. There is a hardened steel pin through the shift dog that transmits the motion of the push-rod. This hardened steel pin is probably sheared off. The gears may be fine.

3. While you are at it, you may as well replace the water pump impeller.

~~~~~~~~~_/)~~~~~~~~~
Rich Plumb, "Plumb Crazy"
26X, Covington WA

[kziadie]

Ron,

Sorry to hear about your trouble, I have never seen that problem before.... however, be aware that you should not get oil coming out of the top screw (that is the filler plug). Also, the capacity of the gear case is only 0.55 qt., so bear that in mind when you think of the amount of oil that came out. If you saw at least 8-10 oz. of oil come out there is a good chance that your problem is not (at least primarily) lubrication related.

Having said all of that, if the shift rod has somehow disengaged, I would not run the engine until you have found the problem because if there is a pin, clip or some other type of shift rod retainer loose in the lower unit, THAT could cause some serious damage.

Kelly

[Perry S]

Hi Ron, sorry to hear about your problem but I have to chuckle at the same time. I had the same problem Sunday except I was stuck in neutral and couldn't go anywhere.

After being towed in and getting the boat on the trailer I found the problem. The linkage that is connected to the plastic lever on the powerhead goes down through tube where the motor pivots left and right, up inside that tube at the lower end there is a coupling nut that connects the upper linkage to the lower linkage. My problem was the jam nut that locks the coupling nut had come loose and the coupling nut vibrated up the threads on the upper linkage (kind of hard to see on land, impossible to see floating in the water). I reconnected the two shafts and shifting is normal. I plan to pt a lock washer between the jam and coupling nuts for a final fix. I hope that's all that is wrong with your transmission.

As far as the oil in your lower unit it sounds like it needed to be changed but the absense of metal particles makes me think your gears, bearings, etc. are OK. There is a magnet in the drain plug that should catch some or all of the ferrous metal that would be floating around in the oil, (a small amount of "fuzz" on the magnet is not unusual and not a cause for concern.

I guess I should introduce myself, I bought a used 2000 26X with a Honda BF50 last summer (my first sailboat) and have been sailing at Carter Lake north of Denver CO.

Last Sunday was a perfect day of sailing until we decided to pack it in for the day because of the thunderstorms and found the engine wouldn't go into gear. We were going to try to dock under sail but every time we would get within 100 yds of the dock a power boat would cut in front of us, guess they figure you're not going to dock if you have a sail up. Anyway we made three attempts got cut off every time and finally gave up because the winds were shifting and dropping, called for a tow and all ended well.

Summary for the day:
I would probably suck at docking under sail so I will blame the power boaters for not being able sail to the dock. (I think I'll practice while I have a working engine)
Things aren't always as bad as they seem, the whole time we were sailing towards the dock I was thinking of how much this will cost me, replace the lower unit, waiting for parts for a month, etc. but turns out to be an easy fix.

I'm not trying to hijack your thread but I thought I would give an intro, Hope your fix will be as easy as mine.

Perry

[Catigale]

My wife suggested I could dock and do everything in reverse and worry about the engine later

Now, thats an Admiral worth of promotion.....

There has to be someone good with Hondas down in the boating capital of the US...maybe someone on the Board can help here.

Docking under sail is tricky and we ran into the same problem with being cut off by power boaters with no knowledge of our intentions

Our solution was to hail them and ask to raft up on the ramp dock - when they go you just paddle the boat over to the dock.

Im going with the shear pin as the probable cause of your being stuck in gear. Do you have a good service manual for your motor? Next step.

[rowdy]

Now my question is what happened to the gear oil?

No plastic washer used on one of the fill, vent or overflow screws.

[Timm Miller]

Ron,

Sorry to hear about your trouble, I have never seen that problem before.... however, be aware that you should not get oil coming out of the top screw (that is the filler plug). Also, the capacity of the gear case is only 0.55 qt., so bear that in mind when you think of the amount of oil that came out. If you saw at least 8-10 oz. of oil come out there is a good chance that your problem is not (at least primarily) lubrication related.

Having said all of that, if the shift rod has somehow disengaged, I would not run the engine until you have found the problem because if there is a pin, clip or some other type of shift rod retainer loose in the lower unit, THAT could cause some serious damage.

Kelly

Actually, the top plug is the vent .......the bottom is for filling until it comes out of the top vent plug.

[kziadie]

Quite right Tim, wrong words on my part. I meant to say that the top plug represents the fill level so pulling the top plug should not see oil draining.

Kelly

[Timm Miller]

I've often thought it would much easier to fill from there but it just won't do it.

[opie]

Good news.
If only a bit of oil came out, then water is not getting in. Otherwise you would have had a full lower unit, full of a milk-shake looking liquid. I vote for the plastic washer possible leaking on the bottom or top vent. Put new ones in after you fill up the lower unit per the directions (pump it up through the lower plug until the oil comes out the top.) Run the unit in water for a while at the ramp and then take it off the ramp and check the oil. It should be clear. If milky, is it less milky than before? It may take 4 flushes of complete drain and re-fill to get the milky stuff out. Now park it over a newspaper for a day or two and see it any drips come out. If all that passes, then the shifting problem........ hmmmm.... have you checked the interconnecting nut between the upper and lower unit shifter rods? Go ahead and disconnect it and grasp the lower rod, now that it is free and move it up and rotate the prop, then move it down and rotate the prop. The prop should be able to be moved clockwise and then moved counterclockwise as the rod is lowered and raised (can't remember which way is which.) If the prop only can turn in one direction no matter which way the rod is lowered or raised, then the internal pin is sheared off or the internal springs have gone bad or worse. My manual says you need special tools to remove the gear-part of the lower unit, so maybe you need to see your friendly Honda dealer and give them your first born. On the other hand, if the above test passes, then the problem is in the cables in the upper unit and somewhat easier to fix. Good luck.
Opie
(My experience comes from removing the lower unit about 10 times until I found that the two oil seals surrounding the vertical drive shaft were bad. I replaced them myself and have no more milk-shake in my oil. I also replaced the water pump impeller while I was in there. See the old threads on that repair where I repeat my warning not to believe the Honda manual for the BF50A engine where it shows pictures of the impeller vane positioning. Remember, on any engine, the impeller vanes must "drag" when the drive shaft turns. That is all you need to know about vane positioning.)

[Catigale]

Isnt Paris Hilton the Mistress of Vane positioning??

[Harry van der Meer]

Defender will sell you a new lower unit for about $1100. Probably a better bet than rebuilding.