I sold a 99 Cobalt 252 (great shape, 480 hours) that has the Mercury Commander 3000 throttle, and the new owner is reporting some shifting problems. I didn't want to leave him dead in the water so I thought I'd poke around a bit to see if it's a simple fix. First, he said that moving the throttle forward would rev the engine, but the drive doesn't engage until a higher RPM, causing the boat to lurch forward and everybody falls over. Then he called again the next day and said it won't go into drive at all, only reverse.
Some tidbits about the boat:
* The boat had an oil change, gear lube, drain & seal the outdrive, check the Gimbal bearing, etc, no issues noted, about 1.5 years ago, and has only had 10 hours put on it since then, otherwise has been wrapped and in storage. My point is, this boat is in great shape and I don't think there is anything serious going on.
* The throttle has always been a little rough -- pushing it forward from the NOON position, a bit of throttle play before the engine started revving, and a slight 'bump' as the drive engaged. But certainly no lurch!
* A month ago, a mechanic did a summerize and hose ran it to inspect the steering, throttle, drive, etc, and no issues noted.
* On our sea trial, there were no such shifting issues. Just the normal slight 'bump' going forward, as noted above. Note that right near the end of the sea trial, the new owner pushed in the Throttle Only button and revved, just playing around, and this button I have never used -- I would wager this button has not been pushed for several years in fact. It seems like his problems began shortly after this, so I am suspicious that something about pressing this Throttle Only button and manipulating the shifter, for the first time in many years, might have exacerbated this issue, which led me to this thread in the first place.
We're planning to go out to the boat and investigate. I've never worked on a boat throttle before, and looking at the various diagrams and videos of the Commander 3000, seems like there's more than a few moving parts. I'm looking for some advice as to one or two specific things to check for, to spare us some head-scratching, based on aforementioned symptoms, to help optimize our time. If it turns out to be over our heads, we'll certainly give it to a mechanic, but hoping to avoid the hassle of pulling it out of the water an so forth.
Oh also, here's kind of a bad picture of the throttle -- How do we access the back of the throttle lever mechanism? It looks like there's a rectangular cut-out to which it's mounted ... do we have to unscrew the surrounding trim panel? Any tricks?
Some tidbits about the boat:
* The boat had an oil change, gear lube, drain & seal the outdrive, check the Gimbal bearing, etc, no issues noted, about 1.5 years ago, and has only had 10 hours put on it since then, otherwise has been wrapped and in storage. My point is, this boat is in great shape and I don't think there is anything serious going on.
* The throttle has always been a little rough -- pushing it forward from the NOON position, a bit of throttle play before the engine started revving, and a slight 'bump' as the drive engaged. But certainly no lurch!
* A month ago, a mechanic did a summerize and hose ran it to inspect the steering, throttle, drive, etc, and no issues noted.
* On our sea trial, there were no such shifting issues. Just the normal slight 'bump' going forward, as noted above. Note that right near the end of the sea trial, the new owner pushed in the Throttle Only button and revved, just playing around, and this button I have never used -- I would wager this button has not been pushed for several years in fact. It seems like his problems began shortly after this, so I am suspicious that something about pressing this Throttle Only button and manipulating the shifter, for the first time in many years, might have exacerbated this issue, which led me to this thread in the first place.
We're planning to go out to the boat and investigate. I've never worked on a boat throttle before, and looking at the various diagrams and videos of the Commander 3000, seems like there's more than a few moving parts. I'm looking for some advice as to one or two specific things to check for, to spare us some head-scratching, based on aforementioned symptoms, to help optimize our time. If it turns out to be over our heads, we'll certainly give it to a mechanic, but hoping to avoid the hassle of pulling it out of the water an so forth.
Oh also, here's kind of a bad picture of the throttle -- How do we access the back of the throttle lever mechanism? It looks like there's a rectangular cut-out to which it's mounted ... do we have to unscrew the surrounding trim panel? Any tricks?
