Foward to neutral shift issue

[75starflight]

I finally flushed the Starflite out after the meet a couple days ago. I left it in gear to put a load on the motor to bring it up to temp and ran for 30mins that way. I went to take it out of gear and got it into the neutral position on the control, but the out drive was partly engaged. So today I decided to take some measurements at the shift cables. After shifting into forward the shift cable to the out drive measured 1 7/8" and I could feel and hear the gears touching in the out drive when I rotated the prop. Then I shifted it into reverse and took a measurement of 1 5/8" and the out drive is in neutral.


from forward to neutral


from reverse to neutral

Now at the meet as you all know amber and I had a little Dukes of Hazard action happen with the wake of a pleasure boat (as Terry Curran put it). By the way Amber's bruise is going away! After the boat parade and the run to lake Peppin and then to see Lock #3 I was waiting for amber to get the trailer to load up so I decided to just drift through the no wake zone. when I shifted into neutral was still going up stream into the current instead of drifting. So I nudged the control towards reverse and it finally came out of forward gear. So I am wondering if I need to do some adjusting to the out drive cable, or could have I done some damage to the drive?

[Rich_V174SS]

Your differences in measurements between fwd and rev are not enough. The measured distance between gears on the cable should be inches, not fractions of an inch. It looks to me like your shift cable is binding up and the interrupt switch is either not connected or defective. I would install a new lower shift cable if one hasn't been done in several years, and make sure the shift interrupt switch was connected and working.

I would also check the control box and main cable for operation. Disconnect the cables from the shift plate on the engine and see what kind of movement you get out of them.

[75starflight]

Thanks Rich, I will give that a try, By the way, those measurements were taken with the cable in the Neutral position after shifting into FWD and RVS. And my interrupt switch is not working I have tested it just need to replace the switch. To put it simply I am just having problems getting it out of forward gear completely when shifting into neutral.

[75starflight]

I went and checked the cables, all are moving freely.

Sorry for my wording in my original post, I shifted it into gear and then out of gear and took the measurements. from into forward gear and back to neutral position with cable in neutral positions the measurement is 1 3/8" ( drive is still partly engaged in Forward gear). Then shifting into reverse then back to neutral position the measurement is 1 5/8" (drive is out of gear).

[Rich_V174SS]

Ok, I think I follow you. Here's a little something I threw together for adjusting the shift cables, maybe it will help.

1) Adjust the upper cable barrel to set the distance between the two pins to 7 1/4ths inches while in neutral.
2) Adjust the lower cable barrel to fit the cable properly between the pin and barrel socket while in forward gear and the prop locked in gear counterclockwise.
3) Adjust the pin in the slot on the actuating lever to fit the cable properly while in reverse gear and the prop locked in gear clockwise.
4) Repeat steps 2 & 3 to verify settings.