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Alpha one shift cable rigging

rl65028

Contributing Member
Question: Do these cables stretch some how? Cant understand how being as they're a solid piece if metal inside housing. Problem: Shift interrupt stays engaged too long and kills engine comeing out of gear. It also grinds going in to fwd instead of quick thump and in. Have set cable at exactly 6 inches and lengthened I turn per manual and from there Ive tried rotateing brass barrel a couple turns in both directions and still pretty much the same. Now its back in original position. I assume I need a new cable unless anyone has any insight Thank You in advance Rob L.
 
they don't stretch in the normal sense. the solid core wears a groove in the inner plastic tube creating space for the cable to move around and not be
as ridged as it should be.
When was the drive removed last to check the other shift system components?
 
An overheat can melt and fuse the cable making it tight to move where is passes by the Y pipe..
You should be able to move the black plastic slide inside the boat with 2 greased fingers and the shift interupter should not even move
The shift slide should rotate freely around the cable core
the plastic wheel on the arm must be there in one piece
the shaft the arm connects to must move freely
the lower brass shoe must be in the 12:00 position or it means the shift spool is worn out of limit
and the lower brass shoe must be snug on the splined shaft
 
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Ok I follow. Yup that was all good. Guess ill be changing cable. Need to get through this fall fishing season. Thank you a ton.
 
If the shift interrupter is being engaged when shifting out of gear into neutral only but not when shifting into gear then something is causing resistance on the cable/linkage movement.

Typically when a cable goes bad you stall shifting into gear and especially when shifting into reverse.

If this only occurs when shifting out of gear into neutral then something is causing this resistance.

As BT doc suggests, disconnect the short cable with someone at prop, shift it yourself manually while the prop person is rotating the prop. Counter clock wise for forward and clock wise for neutral.

You should be able to push the cable end in and pull it out with minimum resistance. If you have to pull hard or push hard then the cable will be suspect.

When pulling or pushing to go back to neutral have the prop person HOLD the prop from moving and as you try to get back into neutral it should become very hard to get there as the clutch dogs will not want to separate (most times as the system is not under normal load). This is what happens normally and this resistance is what activates the switch and cuts out the ignition for a split second.

Also does the V notch plastic part move freely. WHat motor do you have? is this a 4 cylinder with the shift interrupt on top of the valve cover?
I have come across 4 cyl motors as I described where the V notch hold down screw was over tightened causing too much resistance on the V notch movement.
 
5.7 v8 Only when comeing out of fwd. reverse working pretty good. Will ck all as suggested soon as it comes out of water grinds going in to fwd also, not a quick thump that im after. Thank you Kghost.
 
Not that the cable is not stretched or old or may have been overheated........

But it sounds more like something is loose or sloppy at this point to me.


The fact that it is not going into forward quickly (and I am assuming you are shifting firmly and quickly) says something is loose.

in the end it is very difficult to pin point a issue such as this from a computer.......we know what causes all the issues but without being able to touch and feel it, it is up to you to determine the root cause........

try some of the things we suggest and give us your feed back..........maybe take some pics of the shift linkages and post them if you don't figure it out. and maybe we can see something you don't.
 
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