Evinrude/Johnson shifting issues, Please help

[RoughFishAssassins]

After spending countless searches and going thru numerous pages I just can't find what Im looking for. Here is the situation and motor!

1977 Evinrude/Johnson 115 manual shift

Last year in the final months of boating my outboard got a ?hiccup, skip? call it what you will, but it would "skip" every now and again at higher rpms. not very fast, maybe every couple seconds. Thinking something was wrong I tore into the lower unit this winter, actually two of them so I would have a backup. I thought the issue was the gears but all looked good in both units so I proceeded to put both units back together and all when real good. Install them on the boat and put the muffs on and fire up the motor. Everything looks good, shifts into forward and reverse. Trailer to local lake, and put it into reverse, back away from the dock and shift to forward and nothing but grinding/rattling. I can go back and manually (prying) it into forward and it wont stay. I adjust my linkage all the way thinking that was the issue and only change was I lost reverse. Set it back to where I have reverse and still now forwards. I am figuring that I didnt have something put back in the excact spot, but what? I put parts back in the opposite order they came out. Im at a lose as to what happened. I even adjusted the shift rod end under the carbs thinking that I might have had that to low (it was all the way down) and that changed nothing. I am not an outboard mechanic by any means but I have been playing around with this motor for several years now and it runs great, just doesn't move great. Worst part is I have a huge tournament coming this weekend and it would really suck to have to troll to where I want to go, or to have to hug the motor prying the linkage.
I appreciate all the help you can and have given in years past. please help me get my motor moving the proper way again. Thank you

 

[RoughFishAssassins]

Oh ya, both lower units do the same thing, both before I opened them and after I opened them.

 

[RoughFishAssassins]

ok, so more digging lead me to the deal with the length of the shift rod, now I am on to the same problem. I have adjusted the rod, from all the way down (threaded down) to 9-10 turns up the shaft. There never was a good forward lock until the last time, but that wasnt good, it would only hold under low rpms, if I wouls push it it would jump out. and there is no reverse at this point. SO.....where do I look next? I had the lower units 80% apart and put them back together the way they came apart. I am truly at a loose and really need this motor working.

 

[emdsapmgr]

You did not mention that you adjusted the shift rod height to the factory spec as printed in the factory service manual. Did you set it to spec? Good shifting starts with the shift rod being set to the factory spec measured height.

 

[RoughFishAssassins]

I set it at, above and below factory specs. There was improvement the taller the shift rod was, but then I lost reverse, and also would loose forward at higher RPMs

 

[RoughFishAssassins]

I set it at, above and below factory specs. There was improvement the taller the shift rod was, but then I lost reverse, and also would loose forward at higher RPMs

 

[masterbt]

what is the model number, there is an answer somewhere

 

[RoughFishAssassins]

Model number is 115793S