Re: bouncing outdrive
Just following the post. I think I am missing something.
If your outdrive goes up and down, right now, then there should be enough "grab" in the clutch pack to keep it down in reverse. Meaning, if it has enough to lift that heavy leg it should be enough to hold it down under reverse idle.
It sounds like you keep this boat in the water (mooring/slip/etc).
Did the tilt work, and the leg stay down, then develop the problem with staying down? Once that problem occured, did the tilt up fail?
The only reason I am asking those specific questions is because that would be perfect and exact symptoms of the following scenario.
If you had been using the tilt down switch in the one motion , from up all the way down, and have allowed it to slam home, you may have knocked the end retaining cap out of the shaft. You may have lost the worm gear. This would also allow copious amounts of water into the clutch pack.
Been there, done that. Learned and moved on.
If you didn't lose the retainer, and it is only that water has affected the clutches, then you can fix this and MAYBE "rejuevenate" the clutch pack.
Check out
http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=340984
http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=259807
If you go with some sort of HARD rigging the clutch or fixing a stop on the quadrant, you are sacrificing an important safety feature. That clutch pack is your release should you hit something. It is only supposed to take 100 something pounds of lift to force the leg up, slipping those clutches.