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Mercruiser Bravo II Shifting Issue

C

chuck701

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I have an issue with getting the control to shift into forward from neutral. If I try to engage the forward gear it appears to not sync well and clunks 4-5 times and then grabs. Once it is in gear it will work fine but if I get the boat up on plane and then bring it back down to idle it will sometimes fall out of gear and then when I give it a little gas it will clunk its way into forward gear again. Reverse seems to work just fine. This boat is a 1996 model and the engine has about 450 hours on it. Is it a simple cable adjustment that may have gotten a little stretched over the years? I am wondering if I need to trailer the boat out to take a better look or is it something better to be adjusted while in the water. Any help would be appreciated. We use the boat for trolling around salmon fishing and am gearing up for a fishing trip on the 4th of July but don't dare drive it if I can't get it working properly.
 
Bravo I II and III all have the same upper gear case.

This drive uses a cone clutch type engagement method.

this drive can NOT be shifted easily if at all when the engine is NOT running.

If the cone clutch male & female are worn this could be your issue. As they wear the lubrication does not stay between the two halfs and they will stick together making shifting out of gear difficult.


There is also some linkage that tends to carode and wear in the upper gear case making the shift movement out of spec.

As MasterM said maybe the cable is stretched and no longer moving the linkage correctly.

There is a small plastic shift cable tool. It sets the short cable length trunion.

tool part number is (91-12427)
 
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Ok will someone explain to me how to get a properly sized image uploaded to this site????????????????
 
Thanks for the info. I will try the shift cable adjustment tool first and hopefully it will take off and work at least through the summer. I can plan to have the service on the cable completed over the winter.
 
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