Bad night on the lake tonight. I have a 1984 Mercury 9.8 that I use to push a 14 foot jon. I was cruising along as fast as the motor would take me, when the engine reved up real fast, and I lost all speed. I backed off the throttle and was able to run the boat back to the dock at low speed...yet whenever I tried to give it gas, it just reved up real high and went nowhere.

Any thoughts what might have caused this?

Thank You,

Dan

PS Worst of all, I got skunked!

Spun the hub in the prop.

yep, spun prop.  a prop shop can put in a new hub for $30 - $40.

W2S and Josh,

Thanks for the input. It's good to have some idea of what's going on before I take it to the shop. When you guys said "spun the hub" that's exactly how it felt.

Thanks Again!

Dan

You don't need to take the motor in for repair, just take the prop off and take it in.  If you have a prop shop near, you can just take it to the prop shop and let them press the old one out and new one in, provided the prop in good shape and doesn't need blade work.   May even do it while you wait.  You will usually get much quicker service doing this yourself because most prop shops only pickup/deliver at the dealer once a week so if you just miss their pickup, you can be down as much as two weeks waiting.  I think a new aluminum prop for that motor is only about $150.

Also, check/change your lower unit lube to make sure it's not low of have water in it.   It's very common for line/weeds etc to wrap around the prop shaft and take out the seal.  This lets the lube get into the prop and caused the hub to spin.  If this happens, it will need to go to the shop for a new seal.

Way2Slow,

I changed the lower unit oil per your advice. It came out black with no water (or metal flecks), so I feel a little better about that now. Thanks.

I talked to my guy at the boat shop and he said they did indeed need to send the prop away. He asked what kind of shape my prop was in and I said "ok", he said I could get a new one for between 80 and 90 dollars if I wanted to go that route...that's about double what my cost would be to send the prop to St. Louis. I'm going to stop by the shop on my way to work, let him look at the prop and give me his opinion before I decide. He's always treated me well and I trust him.

Thanks again,

Dan

If you have the extra cash, buy the new one, then when you have another $50 bucks extra send that one off for a rebuild/rehub. This will give you a spare because if you're like me, when I'm running my small boats/motors, it's because I'm going into so pretty rough water, (shallow, stumps, logs, all kinds of underwater mines) having a spare has come in handy more than once for me. Also, if your rpms are a little high or low, you can go down or up a pitch, letting your motor perform better.