Bravo III Drive no reverse

[tackleshep]

Ok the story of how I got here is in the general forum but here's my issue.

Put boat in reverse, long pause, heavy chunk. When I took it out of gear I now can not get back to reverse. Forward and nuetral work perfect but reverse is gone.

Things tried:

1. There are two cables that go into the top of the motor on a cradle. Each has a barrel adjustment to make them longer or shorter. Also the cradle that attaches both cables to the arm has a gap that can be increased or decreased to provide better angles to the cable adjustment. We have played this tune to no avail. I have adjusted to the extremes all adjustments and to ever combination you can think of. On Bravo III's it's this adjustment that usually fixes a shifting lag and so forth but it's just not the problem.

2. I think I can rule out heavy tranny problems as forward works fine.

3. The best I can figure out (and backed by a couple merc mechanics) is the shift cable is stripped on the reverse side. Naturally this is the cable that runs from the engine to the drive. Fixing it will require the boat out of water and the drive to be removed.

Anybody think of any worse or better case senarios?

Also - start thinking now because if I'm pulling a drive I'll be looking for a list of anything else I should replace while I'm in there.

[rgreenwell8962]

Couple years ago, I was heading to the fuel dock and lost all gears. If I tried and tried, I could get forward, and every tenth attempt, I could get reverse. Worst case scenarios played out in my head. In the end, it was just the remote (the shifter at the helm).

Don't know if this is the same with yours, but worth looking at. The gears inside the remote decided to fail on me, therefore I could not engage a gear.

Good luck to you!

RIch

[tackleshep]

Yeah that would make perfect sense if you lost all gears, the fact I have forward and nuetral with no problem indicates the remote isn't the culprit. I wish like hell it was and will check it again before pulling it out.

Luckily I have some very good friends in the area and they are friends with an ex-marine mechanic who owns a machine shop now. If I can get the boat to his shop (25 miles away) then he will do the shifter cable for $350 including parts and labor. Obviously I'll be buying some other parts (bellows for one) to change while he's there. No more labor just the part cost.

Now is the issue of trying to decide when to do this.

[cunuck]

what year is the bravo.I would drain the oil and look for any metal in the oil.If you take the leg off might be time to change the gimbal bearing . the leg is heavy I built a stand for mine with wheels so I can move it around easy.I then raise or lower the trailer tonque and slide the leg in very easy diy. 10 min job.good luck

[tackleshep]

Boat is a 2000. Two weeks ago we changed the drive oil and all was well. I'll put checking the gimball bearing on my list. I know the guy I'm taking it to uses a nice little lift to hold the drive while he works on it. This one is beyond my comfort level.

[seapuppy]

also check the bellows...if it's off...check for cracking in the pleats....also grease up the prop shaft when you install the drive back into the engine.......

good luck and take lotsa pic's...


SP