boat won't propel forward, reverses fine

[scisgr8]

This may be more of a prop question, not sure that is why I'm posting here.
I have a 2002 mercury 200hp saltwater efi. Ran the boat all day Sunday, no problems, when loading the boat was in shallow water and kicked the motor up a couple of times trying to thrust and propel onto the trailer. Motor would not propel forward after that.

Got home and started troubleshooting and motor still won't propel forward. Goes in reverse fine and appears to have proper thrust but everytime I move to forward propeller just stops, no matter how hard I rev the engine. It may move just a tad, but something is definetely wrong.

Any ideas on where to start troubleshooting?

Thanks, in advance!

 

[scisgr8]

Re: boat won't propel forward, reverses fine

Anybody, any ideas?

 

[GPSDuckHunter]

Re: boat won't propel forward, reverses fine

I'm not a super mechanic, but my guess is you did some damage to forward gear in lower unit.

It makes my skin crawl that you tried to rev the engine when the prop wouldn't spin in forward gear. Please don't do that anymore.

 

[pbgeneral]

Re: boat won't propel forward, reverses fine

When you mention it kicked the motor up while trying to propel forward, I assume you had forward gear up to that point. Did it kick up from hitting bottom? Normaly I would check the shift cable linkage at the motor, and possibly disconnect it and see if you can shift it into gear by hand. If you can shift it then by hand I would next check your cables to see that they move freely in both directions. If they check out okay, then begin to look at the remote itself. Just had a Johnson 150 come in with similar problem, and found a bent component in the remote that would not allow it to shift.