TOPIC: 1971 J0hnson 100 hp goes only forward in both F&R

Just bought an old Bellboy with a 100 hp Johnson that starts and runs fine. But, once in the water, I come to find out that it wont shift out of forward. In reverse it goes forward and in forward it goes forward. Prop spins when running on land with the cups on. Hoping this is and easy fix and wondering if anybody has an idea or two.

just go round in circles. who needs reverse? kidding.

Is it an electric shift model? Little push buttons on the controller for forward, nuetral, and reverse? If so, does it have the proper lower unit lubricant? Can't use regular lower unit oil, it uses special stuff.

Andreas

Does it stay in gear all the time even when you are in neutral. Some OMC motors had a fail safe on them that if the coils went out they would get you in

If its a reguler shift the linkage has come lose in the leg or someone pull the pin in the bottom of the lower unit and the shift fork is lose in there.
Mike aka pathfinderz1

No shifter forks of any kind in there.

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It is spring loaded to be in forward when the motor is stopped.

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Must be running in order to shift !

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Will still shift with the wrong oil !!!

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Use jumper wire to put 12 volts to green wire , then it should go in nuetral.

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Put 12 volts to both green AND blue and you should get reverse.

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You will find these wires going into the lower unit / exhaust housing. Or you can find the connecters at the back of the powerhead.

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This may well be as simple as a broken switch in the control.

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The term " electric shift " continues to confuse people, not sure why as they are elegantly simple in the way they work , nothing to adjust either.

Thanks for all the help. We think we have it figured out but now we are trying to get the part. The shift selector switch in the remote control has failed. For this motor, it defaults to forward. This switch energizes one of the wires previously mentioned for neutral and both for reverse. We have the power at the motor ahead of the solenoids that force the shifting to neutral or reverse and I was able to manually energize the leads and force the prop to neutral/reverse. At this point we have a local shop ordering the switch and we go from here.They are obsolet and supposedly somebody is rebuilding them.

Thanks for all the help everybody!

Good job following simple instructions.

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Trouble shooting with instructions beats guess work every time !!

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Availability of used parts depend on where you are.--There must be places where these are common and on the shelf.