Last week I finished replacing my gimbal bearing and seal along with some other maintenance. This is my first real dive into the Cobra system (1989 Four Winns Horizon 200 / Ford 5.0 OMC Cobra). These forums were really helpful in figuring everything out as I went along. My question relates to the shift cable:
I have the red cable so I know it's been replaced. I've had the boat for 5 summers now and it's not used a lot, usually 2 weeks on a lake and then maybe 1-2 day trips locally. The cable is at least 6 years old.
I ordered the shifter alignment tools online and followed the process. When I setup the engine end of the cable to be 7 9/16 (to the cable end, not the locknut) and I go to set the retainer, I'm unable to get it to touch the guide because I run out of threads. When I attempted to adjust the engine end of the cable to take up some of the slack, I had screwed it in as far as it would go but I wasn't able to move it enough so that I could get the retainer to the guide.
Now, the boat has shifted fine all along but I wanted to see if things could be setup correctly. When I first took it apart, it was 7 9/16 with the lock screw and the retainer was set all the way in. After adjusting it as best I could with the tools and putting everything back together, I had reverse but no forward. I was able to manually adjust the cable again to get things back to shifting properly (11 turns out on the engine side) but it bugs me that the dimensions are off.
Additionally, I noticed that the plastic guide had quite a bit of play back and forth so I ordered an aluminum replacement. Today that arrived and I started everything over. I even checked the dimensions under the guide end of the engine side by taking the cable apart. The guide helped take some slack out of the system but I'm still back in the same place where I can't get the retainer to touch the guide. The tool allows the bell crank to move a tiny bit which changes how much the retainer gap is. I've taken some pictures to help explain:
http://screencast.com/t/AEujYOQm9S
http://screencast.com/t/RCHiOu7SBiB
The cable itself seems to be in fine shape and slides very smoothly back and forth with ~2lbs of force. Do I need a new cable because it's stretched or am I doing something else incorrectly?
If I screw the cable all the way in, with the retainer all the way in until it bottoms on the threads, then I don't get fwd and it binds the esa in reverse. As I mentioned above, it takes about 11 turns of the cable to get things about right. Thoughts? Should I shorten the cable by cutting some off the engine side?
I have the red cable so I know it's been replaced. I've had the boat for 5 summers now and it's not used a lot, usually 2 weeks on a lake and then maybe 1-2 day trips locally. The cable is at least 6 years old.
I ordered the shifter alignment tools online and followed the process. When I setup the engine end of the cable to be 7 9/16 (to the cable end, not the locknut) and I go to set the retainer, I'm unable to get it to touch the guide because I run out of threads. When I attempted to adjust the engine end of the cable to take up some of the slack, I had screwed it in as far as it would go but I wasn't able to move it enough so that I could get the retainer to the guide.
Now, the boat has shifted fine all along but I wanted to see if things could be setup correctly. When I first took it apart, it was 7 9/16 with the lock screw and the retainer was set all the way in. After adjusting it as best I could with the tools and putting everything back together, I had reverse but no forward. I was able to manually adjust the cable again to get things back to shifting properly (11 turns out on the engine side) but it bugs me that the dimensions are off.
Additionally, I noticed that the plastic guide had quite a bit of play back and forth so I ordered an aluminum replacement. Today that arrived and I started everything over. I even checked the dimensions under the guide end of the engine side by taking the cable apart. The guide helped take some slack out of the system but I'm still back in the same place where I can't get the retainer to touch the guide. The tool allows the bell crank to move a tiny bit which changes how much the retainer gap is. I've taken some pictures to help explain:
http://screencast.com/t/AEujYOQm9S
http://screencast.com/t/RCHiOu7SBiB
The cable itself seems to be in fine shape and slides very smoothly back and forth with ~2lbs of force. Do I need a new cable because it's stretched or am I doing something else incorrectly?
If I screw the cable all the way in, with the retainer all the way in until it bottoms on the threads, then I don't get fwd and it binds the esa in reverse. As I mentioned above, it takes about 11 turns of the cable to get things about right. Thoughts? Should I shorten the cable by cutting some off the engine side?