Glen-L.com

Yesterday since it was blowing, we were cruising on the CT River and at 3000RPM had a change in sound on the E-TEC and a large clunk. It was not a completely metallic clunk but was a solid clunk nevertheless. We thought that we had picked up weed but after reversing, the motor clunked again when back in forward. We limped back to the dock at 1000RPM and thinking it might be something like a spun hub, we changed the prop from our SS prop to the aluminum one and ran the boat up to 2000RPM tied to the dock. No clunk but out in the river, there was a clunk although the aluminum prop was much better than the SS prop. We delayed leaving the CT River (at Mystic Seaport now) until we could figure things out. Our E-TEC dealer, when apprised of the symptoms, strongly felt that the clutch dogs did not fully engage and that the clunk was them skipping. The suggested reason was that the shifter cable was stretched to slightly long through normal break in (we are at 83 hours) and therefore out of adjustment and the clutch was not fully engaging. Apparently, if you shift hard, this is less of an issue as the clutch is slammed in. However, we don't shift hard. His suggestion was to undo the trunnion on the motor end of the shifter cable (the lower cable on the motor connected to the SS lever) and spin the black plastic knurled knob 2 turns to shorten the cable and then tighten everything up. This was easy to accomplish although I did need to remove the throttle cable for access to the nut on the shift trunnion. I put the motor back together, changed the prop back to the SS one (properly torqued to 75 ft lbs) and ran the boat up to 2000 RPM at the slip. No clunk. We left for Mystic and put the boat through its paces on the river. No clunk. Out the river and east on the Sound to Mystic and the Seaport. No clunk. Problem solved.

This is a minor problem that can be easily fixed and should be attended to immediately as the clunking is not good for the clutch. I figure someone else will eventually have the problem and may remember this post easing their problem solving.

It was nice to have a boating learning experience that was not costly and easy to remedy.