Two gears, One direction

[belchnasty]

I recently bought a pontoon off an uncle of mine with a 1982 Mercury 50hp outboard. I dropped the lower unit and replaced the impeller with the help of a buddy, in the process the idiot moved the shifter once or twice. I finally got her in the water and fired up and now reverse sends me forward, and forward sends me forward. The shifter drops to reverse with no troubles but it takes an effort to push into forward. The shifter cables are aged but move with the shifter. I didn't mess with anything but the lower unit.

Taking it apart tomorrow with someone who knows a to sort out, any ideas on what needs done or looked at?

 

[jbuote]

Hey there! :welcome:

Not a pro here, but most likely the shift shaft...

the guru's here will offer better advice I'm sure, but I think it's just a matter of re-installing lower..
Take lower off again, make sure lower unit and shifter are in the same gear.. (shifter and lower unit both in Neutral for example)...

Then re-assemble making sure lower and shifter stay in the gear you put them in.

Hope it helps!

 

[belchnasty]

Thats the plan but I want to make sure. I've had her for two months already and I'm glad the rivers been a little too high to put in because this is frustrating.

 

[KJonesy93]

Thats the plan but I want to make sure. I've had her for two months already and I'm glad the rivers been a little too high to put in because this is frustrating.

Did you get this figured out? It appears I'm having a very similar problem on my 1999 force 40 hp will not shift into reverse. With the lower unit off I could make it switch into each gear and the prop behaved as supposed to. When my throttle controller is in reverse it actually has the boat in neutral and when I move the throttle to neutral the engine is in forward gear.

 

[GA_Boater]

If both you guys would look at the stickies for this forum section, merc850 posted how to do this.