Tracker 165 Mercury 40HP Shift and Throttle Cable Issues

[Mathers]

Greetings my fellow boaters and enthusiasts! I am seeking advice on a Tracker 165 boat, outfitted with a 40HP Mercury. Initially the problem was when the shifter was in neutral the prop would still spin with enough force to push the boat. Got the rig home and performed an inspection and found that the cables were really worn and loose. So, I decided to replace both cables thinking that this would be an easy fix. Put the shifter in neutral and manually put the engine and neutral and installed the cables. Once I got both cables back to the engine the shift cable would not fit unless I ran the adjustment barrel all the way back until it ran out of threads just to properly set in the neutral position. The new cables are QuickSilver and match perfect with the old TeleFlex cables that were orginally on the boat. Any ideas on what to do here? Thank You all in advance.

 

[racerone]

Did it shift ok last season ?----Was lower unit off for water pump work ?

 

[Mathers]

Hello, and thank you for the reply. It shifted fine last season and has been very well maintained. Impeller, etc was all replaced last fall.

 

[racerone]

Did the issue start after the impeller work ??