Funny motor fix

So last year, with a very heavy load on the boat, the motor seemed to be really sluggish and slow. I was in the Boundary Waters, and one of the other boats with a 9.9 was beating my boat with a '73 merc 20. Not knowing a lot about outboards, I thought that my motor was just old and worn out. Today I had the lower unit off and was really jaring the powerhead around while putting it back on. Afterwards I was messing with the throttle handle and noticed that it turned WAY more than it used to. I took off the shroud thing to see if I somehow messed up the linkage and noticed that there was a dime, yes a 10 cent piece, stuck down by the shift linkage. Turns out that the dime was keeping the part of the linkage that keeps you from reving to high in neutral engaged, while in forward. I have a feeling that this thing is going to feel like a rocket not that I can open the throttle to the stop. This is the reason I love, and hate working on old stuff, I might have never figured this out!

Hah sweet!

That has to be the best upgrade ever. You got paid to make your motor go faster =D>

Haha nice. I ran my old Eska for 3 hrs on the river one time, couldn't get it to rev right. Pulled the cowl to find a wadded up paper towel in the carb. I had hosed the motor down the week before and stuck that paper towel in there to keep water out of the carb, forgot to take it out when I was finished cleaning it :LOL2:

Free money!

Okay, I'll ad my story to humiliate myself.

I had an older 14 foot fiberglass fishing boat. I had just replaced the impeller, lower unit seals and lube, so we took it out to he salt water to do some harbor fishing. On the way out I noticed a real high pitch hum while the motor was running. The boat ran alright so we continued on. Upon returning to the ramp, that noise was really bothering me. I got the truck and backed the trailer into the water. I then jumped into the boat and raised the motor up. I was so embarrassed!

The ear muffs were still on the lower unit!