Throttle Control Lever Does Not Stay Put

[kaydano]

Is there a friction adjustment for the throttle control handle? My throttle lever does not stay put in the upper RPMs. It slowly drops back to a lower level. I have to hold it in place, and it's hard to turn the wheel with one hand and one knee when pulling a tube!

Seems like someone posted a question about this a while back, but I can not find it.

Far as I can tell, I have the Mercury 4500 Gen II model remote control. I can't find anything about it online. Searched for over an hour.

I took the cover off the handle when we were out, and I could not see anything obvious that looked like an adjustment screw. Maybe there's an adjustment at the motor end of the cable? I have the 115 Merc 4-stroke. New in 2011.

Thanks!

 

[kaydano]

After a TON of online searching, I found the Mercury Service manual for all their controllers.

Here is a pic of where the friction adjustment should be. It's vertically straight "below" the throttle lever shaft, and it looks to me like this nut will only be accessible from underneath the console, which explains why I didn't see it from the driver's chair.

I will have to try to adjust this today when we go out on the boat.

 

[liljake83]

After a TON of online searching, I found the Mercury Service manual for all their controllers.

Here is a pic of where the friction adjustment should be. It's vertically straight "below" the throttle lever shaft, and it looks to me like this nut will only be accessible from underneath the console, which explains why I didn't see it from the driver's chair.

I will have to try to adjust this today when we go out on the boat.

Hey dano keep us updated on what you adjust and if it works because i am having the same issue on my 150 merc and my father is having that issue on his 60 bigfoot thanks for all your research

 

[kaydano]

I found the friction adjustment nut. It was as shown in the other diagram I posted above, and it was buried under the console. Can't get to it from the captain chair side of it. You can see me pointing to it in the photo. I had to crawl way in there to get to it. It was VERY loose. Snugged it up, and works fine now. No slipping. I think it was 9 mm (or SAE equivalent). The reason I don't know is I grabbed a half dozen small wrenches on the way out the door, and the 9 mm didn't end up in my fist. Good thing a small crescent did.

Anyway, the angle on the photo is poor, but to give you a sense as to where stuff is, the back of the Garmin would be parallel to the face of the console, and that's the same plane/surface that the control lever is mounted on, if that makes any sense.

Glad it was simple.

As I was fixing it, the dock guy came over and said he couldn't get much gas to go into my tank. Uh-oh. I read about this one here... Don't recall a "fix" ever being posted, but I will have to dig. Unless someone remembers and wants to post. My dealer is a 4-hour round trip. I hope it's something I can do...

 

[liljake83]

I found the friction adjustment nut. It was as shown in the other diagram I posted above, and it was buried under the console. Can't get to it from the captain chair side of it. You can see me pointing to it in the photo. I had to crawl way in there to get to it. It was VERY loose. Snugged it up, and works fine now. No slipping. I think it was 9 mm (or SAE equivalent). The reason I don't know is I grabbed a half dozen small wrenches on the way out the door, and the 9 mm didn't end up in my fist. Good thing a small crescent did.

Anyway, the angle on the photo is poor, but to give you a sense as to where stuff is, the back of the Garmin would be parallel to the face of the console, and that's the same plane/surface that the control lever is mounted on, if that makes any sense.

Glad it was simple.

As I was fixing it, the dock guy came over and said he couldn't get much gas to go into my tank. Uh-oh. I read about this one here... Don't recall a "fix" ever being posted, but I will have to dig. Unless someone remembers and wants to post. My dealer is a 4-hour round trip. I hope it's something I can do...

Dano you are awesome thanks for the info and that photo really helps i'm sure i will have no issue adjusting mine.

 

[kaydano]

No prob. Nice to "give back" once in a while for all the help I've gotten here... I can't believe I couldn't find this info readily online. I found TONS of people that had this problem, but no posts on exactly how to fix it. I must have looked for about 3 hours last night before I ran into the service manual posted on some website with the diagram I posted above. So, I hope this helps others too.

My screw was really loose (yeah, yeah, I've heard that before), but I probably only turned the nut about two revolutions total. It didn't take much at all to get it to work. The handle is really tight now. Just saying don't tighten the nut too much. I've snapped off small bolts like this one before, and having looked at the diagrams of what's inside the control module, this is NOT something you want to HAVE to take apart!