Need Help: 1984 Johnson

I have very recently been having trouble with my 1984 25HP Johnson outboard. Let's see if I can describe it well enough that your great minds can help me out.

I'll start my outboard just fine, put it into gear to get going and everything seems okay. I'll cruise slowly through the "no wake" zone (speed of 2 on a scale of 10), and when I get clear of the buoys I'll turn the handle on the tiller and start to pick up speed up to about 5 out of 10. I'll slowly keep turning the handle on the tiller but at some point something happens, and I drop back down to low speed again, let's say back down to a speed of 2 out of 10.

At this point I am somewhat confused so I keep turning the handle and nothing is happening. I turn it nearly 360 degrees and it "catches" again and I start to pick up speed. I go from 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 to... I drop back down to 2. I keep turning the handle another 360 degrees and it seems to "catch" and I can again increase my speed until something "slips" and I fall back down to super slo-mo.

It seems like at some point in the handle rotation a mechanism of some sort slips and the motor goes back to a near-idle. Turning the handle a complete rotation helps, but I can still only go so far as 5/10.

Okay, now question time. Does anybody know what could be going on with my motor? The gas I am using is pretty old. Could that be it? Is there something going on inside the tiller handle?

Thanks you guys!

I wouldn't think the handle should ever turn 360 degrees. Maybe the throttle grip is broken inside.

yeah if your turning it 360 degrees something is broke.. im guessing the gear/shaft groove pin wich connects the gear/shaft to the throttle so when you turn the throttle on the tiller handle it turns the gear/shaft wich turns the throttle control arm. if that's broke or worn and not catching that would cause what you describe with your throttle not responding properly. id replace the spring,friction block and theres a bushing and a washer to I think. they are all cheap,available and easy to replace...

I also thought it was pretty strange it was turning a full 360 because I don't remember that happening at all last summer. I'll look into what you guys have suggested. Thanks!

Broken throttle cable?
Something is broken, handle shouldn't turn 360.

So without doing too much I think I solved the problem.

After inspection it seemed like the teeth on the crankshaft weren't catching. So this is what I did. I put the tiller arm back up to the vertical position and then slowly back down the the horizontal position. Like magic, everything fit together and worked just fine.

So why wasn't it working before? The tiller arm is just loose enough that it can actually be pushed farther down beyond the horizontal position. When this happens the teeth move farther away and they just barely don't catch.

I tried to open up the tiller arm to see if I could tighten up some things, but the bigger bolt near the hinge just wasn't going to give up so I think I will leave that for another day. Until then I'll just make sure the tiller arm is in true horizontal position and hasn't been pushed down below it.

Thanks for all of your help you guys. I'm glad I didn't need to replace anything expensive or do too much.