# Yamaha 25 HP shallow drive assembly



## willie mckoy (Oct 20, 2010)

Pardon the lengthy text here, but I am looking for some advice on my 1998 Yamaha outboard. I have had a humpty-dumpty experience with the shallow water drive assembly on my Yamaha 25 4-stroke. It’s a long story but the assembly came loose when the roll pin (some folks call it a spring pin, I call it a roll pin) that attaches the bracket to the lever arm assembly corroded away causing the bracket and linkage to come loose. 

To make it a long story short, I took the boat to a Yamaha dealer close to home thinking it would be the quickest way to get me back on the water. They could not get to it in a timely manner, but managed to lose the tension spring while they had it. They claimed they didn’t and we argued over that and agreed to disagree, but the bottom line is I won’t be going back there. Then I took it to my regular mechanic in Mobile who diagnosed the problem for me and found a replacement spring, but could not/did not want to repair it. It’s a tight fit up in there and he said his hands were too big to get up in there and put it back together. He also said that given the tight working space it would be difficult to install another roll pin into the lever shaft and recommended I try a stainless cotter pin instead.

From there I took it home and tried to fix it myself. Due to the weight of the motor and the tight quarters under between the engine and transom I quickly saw I needed to remove the outboard to work on it. So I drained the oil from the crankcase and laid it on its side on my tailgate to better access the area in question. Despite better access and having the schematic from Yamaha, for the life of me I could not figure out how all the parts went back together. Part of the problem is that Yamaha changed the design at some point, and the parts in their schematic do not match the parts on my motor.

If anyone is still reading and has experience with this and knows or can advise how all these parts fit back together I surely would appreciate it. If not, I am happy to take it to another mechanic/shop to have it reassembled IF I have confidence that they will be able to do it. I don’t really want to pay a lot of $$ to have the issue diagnosed and not repaired. 

Thanks in advance, and happy fishing/hunting!


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## murfpcola (Aug 28, 2012)

" I picked up a kaiser blade that was sitting by the screen door. Some people call it a sling blade, I call it a kaiser blade." Sorry, I could not help myself. Hopefully someone will come along soon with some actual help.


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## willie mckoy (Oct 20, 2010)

I'll buy 'em some magazines and hard candy. Maybe even throw in a large fries.


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