Goes into gear hard sometimes

[jbetzelb]

I have an 89 4.3 OMC. The lower unit shifts perfectly most of the time but recently on occasion is seems to slam into gear with a bit of a clunk. I have followed the posts for years and read about stretched cables, shift kill switch, and clutches ect. This seems to occur more when it has been worked hard with a heavy tube or someone wakeboarding. The lower part of the lower unit was replaced 5 years ago. The upper part is original with about 800 hours on it. Thoughts? Does a shift problem usually originate in the upper or lower part of the stern drive?

 

[HT32BSX115]

Howdy,


Sounds a lot more like a lower shift cable problem (adjustment, binding, defective, etc) The "shift Kill switch" #1, is NOT a "kill' switch and #2 shouldn't be activating at all when going into gear.

The ESA (Electronic Shift Assist) should only activate coming out of gear...... when you have the drive in gear, in the water and the engine running at the correct idle RPM.

They will "slam" into gear if the RPM is too high, and/or the drive shifts after the engine increases above idle.......it can be due to maladjustment or binding cable etc.

If you don't have an OEM manual, you should probably obtain one if you want to be able to fix it yourself. Also, if you haven't read the Hastings "stuff' on the Cobra, it will help you fully understand how the Cobra drive shifting system works.

http://www.hastings.org/~stuart/cobra/

Cheers,


Rick