Mercury 5 hp lower unit

brewster16

Well-Known Member
Aug 9, 2009
1,442
Long Beach Island, N.J.
Boat Info
'07 44 Sundancer
Engines
Twin Cummins QSC 8.3
Removed it and replaced the impeller no problem. Re-inserting the lower unit is nearly impossible. Can someone give me guidance on getting the drive shaft to insert back up into the power head?? It's a blind, by feel thing. I keep hitting what feels like a metal wall up there. What happened to the "hole" it came out of? I've tried every angle and keep hitting the hard wall up there.
 
Removed it and replaced the impeller no problem. Re-inserting the lower unit is nearly impossible. Can someone give me guidance on getting the drive shaft to insert back up into the power head?? It's a blind, by feel thing. I keep hitting what feels like a metal wall up there. What happened to the "hole" it came out of? I've tried every angle and keep hitting the hard wall up there.
 
Either you're missing the hole or the splines aren't lining up. The first one is on you :) For the splines, twist the shaft a few degrees and try again. If you took it off in gear, you can use the prop the twist the shaft as you insert.
 
At this point (maybe it's too late) it doesn't seem to matter if it's in forward neutral or reverse....I just keep hitting something solid up there as I push the drive shaft up there. I've pushed it, wiggled it, rotated the prop, pulled the start cord, jiggled it, lifted it, lowered it and done each of these things in forward, neutral and reverse AND I STILL CANT GET THE SPLINES INTO THE POWER HEAD! Moving the gear lever doesn't appear to be changing anything inside the power head. Anybody?
 
At this point (maybe it's too late) it doesn't seem to matter if it's in forward neutral or reverse....I just keep hitting something solid up there as I push the drive shaft up there. I've pushed it, wiggled it, rotated the prop, pulled the start cord, jiggled it, lifted it, lowered it and done each of these things in forward, neutral and reverse AND I STILL CANT GET THE SPLINES INTO THE POWER HEAD! Moving the gear lever doesn't appear to be changing anything inside the power head. Anybody?

Seems like you have done all the usual dances, maybe something like this is in order.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086X1XGN...wg=vLsIP&ref_=sbx_be_s_sparkle_mcd_asin_1_img

There's tons of them out there and they have multiple uses. This is just one.
 
Shifting is done is done in the gear housing, not the power head. You would have to manually put the lower into gear to be able to use the prop to slightly turn the driveshaft.

There's no magic here :) somehow you're just not getting it lined up. Try having someone slowly pull the cord while you try to fit it in.

Any issues with the water tube?

Did everything come apart nicely?
 
On marineengines.com a forum a member alluded to needing to re-attach the long shift rod from the lower unit back to the one that comes down from above (engine) then shifting into forward after that's done??? Does this make sense to anybody?

Recall that I'm still trying to get the splined drive shaft to slip into the power head?? And, yes Dennis, everything came apart nicely. No issues with water tube or any other aspect of the water pump change out. I just cant get the damn thing back in so I can bolt the lower unit back on and be done with this miserable situation!
 
It's probably not the driveshaft that you're having trouble lining up. If this is a 4 stroke, I always had problem with the shift rod hitting the inside of the housing and I thought it was the driveshaft not lining up. You get the same metal-on-metal clunk that you would with the driveshaft.

Sometimes it helps to have three hands, two raising the lower unit and one messing with the shift rod through the access hole to get it to line up.
 

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