Jammed pull start - evinrude 15hp

[SiClapham]

We were out today having a ball but then midway through the session, the engine died while in forward gear and the manual start cord was solid, no movement
We drifted for a while, and paddled into shore for a looksie. Now, I'm not the most mechanical of people, but the starter recoil thingy looked fine with the hood off. Having a chat about compression, although not really knowing the solution Still jammed tight and a rocky shore in front of us meant a long paddle into the wind
Luckily, we didn't have that far to paddle and the swell was next to zero.

Got home and the evinrude fired first time in the wheelie bin and rang like a songbird

So, anyone know of a quick fix when on the water for a jammed up pull-cord?

[spartacus]

It shouldn't jam. Because it's done it once, I'd suggest changing the recoil spring and pull cord to be on the safe side.

[benc]

Are you sure it was out of gear properly ? You might need to adjust the gear linkage

[TomKat]

The gear selector stops it from pull starting - makes it safer when in shore. However off shore some fishermen disable this to stop what happened to you from happening. Disabled you can start while in gear and get out of trouble.

May also be the recoil playing up but does sound very much like the in gear lever stopping you.

Are you 100% sure you put it back in neutral when you tried to start it? I only ask as I did the same thing once much to my wife's amusement 15 yards of shore!

[SiClapham]

Cheers guys, quick replies......she died while in gear and we couldn't get the lever back into neutral.....I'm guessing this didn't help.
Any suggestions for getting neutral when things go tight?

[alexmcrobbie]

This happened to me a while back on a sailing club tender. I found the best way to get the engine out of gear was to raise it and give the propeller a wiggle, whilst doing this you should be able to knock it out of gear quite easily.