Liquid_force
Petty Officer 1st Class
- Joined
- May 7, 2003
- Messages
- 318
Hello.
I'm trying to help my uncle get his '90 sunbird back on the water. He is great with engines, but an amateur with stern drives.
He's had it for 2 or 3 seasons, and it had been dependable, but it sat for a yr or so, and when he got it back out it had shift problems. It goes in and out of reverse, but won't go into fwd.
We pulled the drive and disconnected the shift cable and I found a LOT of pivot resistance in the bellcrank. There was actually a significant amount of DUST in the bellcrank cavity
(how did THAT happen?) The grease/dust created a gummy substance that was causing it to bind pretty bad.
I took the bellcrank out, cleaned the cavity, cleaned and lubed the bellcrank. When I reinstalled it, it was moving very smoothly. We adjusted the shift cable (7-9/16"), and I set the trunnion to 6.5". The cable seemed to be working well with very little resistance. At that point we put the drive back on. I hoped that would do the trick, but no such luck.
It was shifting basically the same. I disconnected the cables at the engine and tried to manually shift it into fwd. I could feel it trying to "push back" and pop out of gear.
At this point I think there's something wrong internally. Or is it too early to say that?
I'm guessing the bound up bellcrank may have caused other problems. Uncle's guessing the clutch is chewed up, which at this point is my best guess too.
Yay, nay? Other things to try?
I'm trying to help my uncle get his '90 sunbird back on the water. He is great with engines, but an amateur with stern drives.
He's had it for 2 or 3 seasons, and it had been dependable, but it sat for a yr or so, and when he got it back out it had shift problems. It goes in and out of reverse, but won't go into fwd.
We pulled the drive and disconnected the shift cable and I found a LOT of pivot resistance in the bellcrank. There was actually a significant amount of DUST in the bellcrank cavity
(how did THAT happen?) The grease/dust created a gummy substance that was causing it to bind pretty bad.I took the bellcrank out, cleaned the cavity, cleaned and lubed the bellcrank. When I reinstalled it, it was moving very smoothly. We adjusted the shift cable (7-9/16"), and I set the trunnion to 6.5". The cable seemed to be working well with very little resistance. At that point we put the drive back on. I hoped that would do the trick, but no such luck.
It was shifting basically the same. I disconnected the cables at the engine and tried to manually shift it into fwd. I could feel it trying to "push back" and pop out of gear.
At this point I think there's something wrong internally. Or is it too early to say that?
I'm guessing the bound up bellcrank may have caused other problems. Uncle's guessing the clutch is chewed up, which at this point is my best guess too.
Yay, nay? Other things to try?
