Slipping Morse Control

[Nick D]

Over the last 200 hours or so my morse has become annoying. Whenever I move it forward any more than 1200 rpm it just slips back to that level and for anything higher than this I have to hold it in place with one hand and the other hand on the tiller, which gets rather uncomfortable after a while.  The engine is still quite new c500 hrs and I wonder if this is bedding in and needs tightening somewhere. Any ideas?

[Boater Sam]

Depends on the Morse but there is usually a fibre friction washer under a nut on the pivot to stiffen it.

[john6767]

No idea it it is revant in this case, but we had this on a hire boat once, and the hire company come out and swopped the throttle cable which fixed it.

[Ray T]

If it is a MV 2 this may help?
https://www.marlow-hunter.com/wp-content/export/Vendor-Manuals/Morse_MV-2 Control.pdf

[Tony Brooks]

It seems most, if not all, the genuine Morse controls have a built in detent ball and leaf spring inside the b ox on the back of the control that is not shown in Ray's leaflet. It is this that gives the neutral "click" and also (according to Morse) sufficient friction. As far as I can see no adjustment is provided.

 

When my control started acting up in this way after fitting new cables, I was told to fit an additional "pull open" spring to the engine control lever to counteract the effect of the throttle return spring. I do not like that as a solution but was lucky in that my throttle return spring on the injector pump was external and  easy to slip one end free. That solved it for me.  However some injector pumps seem to use an internal return spring so the only option is the extra "pull open" spring suitably adjusted for tension. You may also find that introducing a fairly tight pair of kinks into the cable run would help.

 

I could see no reference to any form of friction adjustment on that manual - unlike many other makes of control.

[Nick D]

I've now unearthed the manual and found that mine is an Ultraflex B85. The manual says that I can adjust the lever friction, which I hope means that it will solve the problem I have.  Apparently I need to drill a hole in the circular impression which sits behind the lever and then there is a screw which can be adjusted.  Will wait till after the football and report back.

[Tony Brooks]

Good, so it is not a genuine Morse control.

[Nick D]

Sorry, I thought Morse was a generic term for the levers!

[Chewbacka]

40 minutes ago, Nick D said:

Sorry, I thought Morse was a generic term for the levers!

Bit like 'my hoover is a Dyson'

[eightacre]

59 minutes ago, Nick D said:

I've now unearthed the manual and found that mine is an Ultraflex B85. The manual says that I can adjust the lever friction, which I hope means that it will solve the problem I have.  Apparently I need to drill a hole in the circular impression which sits behind the lever and then there is a screw which can be adjusted.  Will wait till after the football and report back.

I have an Ultraflex, and found that the drilling had already been done when the control was installed. If not - it is easy to find. Good luck!

[Nick D]

For all owners with an Ultraflex lever, its a really easy to tighten the friction.  I did it as outlined above and it worked fine! Thanks for your help and advice

[zenataomm]

Mine has always done that.

 

I got around it by gluing a thin strip of emery cloth (grit side up) around the edge of the base of the lever where it enters the body.

Under way I hook my lock key over the top with the elbow resting around the top of the emery cloth.

That provides enough friction to stop the lever slipping back, yet still allows me to adjust the throttle without unbalancing the windlass.

 

It also means I know where my lock key is, and I can't move off without it.

[nicknorman]

On 07/07/2018 at 16:18, Nick D said:

I've now unearthed the manual and found that mine is an Ultraflex B85. The manual says that I can adjust the lever friction, which I hope means that it will solve the problem I have.  Apparently I need to drill a hole in the circular impression which sits behind the lever and then there is a screw which can be adjusted.  Will wait till after the football and report back.

We have a B85 and had the same problem, except it only manifested itself above about 1500rpm ie river speeds. I found that adjusting the friction screw didn’t help, it just made the first part of the travel stiff. I found that the gear cable had too much travel and this was feeding back into the throttle action. If you have the fairly ubiquitous PRM150 gearbox it should be set up so that the lever on the gearbox doesn’t quite hit its stop. If you read the manual for the B85 you will see that you can reduce the travel by rearranging the bit the cable attaches to. This helped.

 

But to fully fix. I added a long spring to the throttle cable at the B85 end. The geometry means that it’s effect is minimal at low throttle openings but increases at higher throttle openings. It has totally fixed the problem. I think the strong integral throttle spring (trying to keep the throttle closed) on our Beta 43 is the root of the problem, but being internal is hard to change.