TOPIC: '68 Evinrude Elec. shift thread

Didn't want to hijack that thread about the 40 hp electric. shift. My dad has a '72 Evinrude 65hp triple that he wanted to put on his boat. Sad part is, he didn't look to see if it was a short shaft like he needs and got a long shaft. So he want to sell it. EVERYONE comes to look at it and then says, oh, electric shift, it is a throw a motor. I can't understand it, but even one local dealership will not even work on it. It motor and trans are fine,a real good looking motor. Dad is down to a give away price because of the dealers and we know that the buyers are going to dealers and asking about them. So just what is a ES motor worth that has an undeserved bad rap? To bad it is a long shaft as it would be on his boat now. Checked into replacing the lower unit for a short shaft motor and that doesn't seem to be feasible at all.

My brother is also trying to sell his '64 fiberglass Starcraft with 40hp ES. Had about 5 guys really interested in it at a boat show and they left wanting to thing about and would get back to him. All got back to him within the hour and all said the same thing. ES is just too scary for them to want to gamble with it. It is a good operating rig too. Too bad about the words being spread that it is not what you want to own. I would though, because I can't imagine without some sort of ingenuity if you had a problem, you couldn't fix it with some sort of good old American ingenuity.

Just the way it is .

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Very few 25 year old mechanics with 40 years experience.

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They made the electramatic ( magnets and wrap springs from 62 to 70 on the outboards and to 77 on the sterndrives ) if they were bad they would not have made them that long.---The HYDRO-ELECTRIC from 68 to 72 and they were excellent as well.

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Electric shift is great and reliable.

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Getting them fixed is a different story, depends on where you live I guess.---I have some short housings and short driveshafts kicking around.

i must be one of the few being 25 and a mechanic typically they only fail when shifted at too high revs eg. eng not running properly and they will break the spring but they are dead simple to work on and parts can be tricky to find

We have a couple Lark Selectrics ('64 & '67) and the LUs worked fine for us. The '64 needs work now though, one or both springs are stuck (probably rusted to the magnets). Hopefully that won't prevent removal to clean them up or replace. Both of these have the extension, making them long-shaft. I'm guessing that if I needed a short-shaft, all I'd need would be to get a short driveshaft and take out the extender.

BTW, wouldn't this thread be better located in JEGO's place?

Agreed easy to fix / easy to work on.

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Parts depends on where you are.----I know of a place where the sterndrive units are " lined up " outside the shop waiting for someone to buy them. probably cheap too.

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Picked up 2 motors there this year 66---110 HP towers of power.

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FREE AS WELL.

I think that they've got a bad reputation- But it's not necessarily a deserved one.

I know TONS of people that use them. Like anything else, if you take care of it and use it right, it'll be fine. The problem is, people DON'T, and then they tell other people that they are poorly made, trouble prone, and to stay away from them... This becomes 'fact' over time.

One thing that I have noticed is that people often use the wrong lower unit oil in them- And I think this causes a LOT of problems that get blamed on the electric shift rather than the operator... There is a different gear lube specifically for the electrics.

There isn't a marine mechanic around here that will work on one- But then again, it's tough to find a marine mechanic around here that will work on ANYTHING that's more than 25 or so years old. This can be a good thing- I got a GREAT deal on a '59 lark that needed minor electrical work because the guy took it to his marina and they told him that it would be at least $400, if not more, to fix it... They wanted $100 to LOOK at it! They REALLY just don't want to work on older motors, so they just try to overcharge and hope you'll walk away

-Andrew

As far as parts for an electric shift, If you can find a spare for cheap, get it. I found a couple for "insurance". One had a brand new complete OMC water pump installed right before they junked it. So I basically bought the new water pump for $100 and got the complete 75hp Evinrude free..