1988 350 magnum shift problems

[MercPower!!]

i have a 1988 21 foot cuddy with a mercruiser 350 magnum with an alpha drive. The engine runs amazing, though it has never shifted right, mosts boats have click in neutral, easily, ours you have always had to play with it a bit to find neutral, but not too bad, but the last few summers, as the engine gets warmer from use, we cannot find neutral. PERIOD, very big problem when trying to dock, it will only skip through from forward to reverse and vice versa. and obviously you have to find neutral before you turn the boat off, or you'll never get it running, unless you can find neutral, and as you know, that is difficult when your boat doesn't shift right. Does anybody have any ideas on what the problem could be? and how i would go about fixing it? clutchdog? transmission? lower unit? thank you to anyone who has advice..

 

[Chris E]

probably the shift cable in the transom assembly and my bet is your shifter is due for replacement

 

[MercPower!!]

all shifter cables were replaced 2 years ago, and we have adjusted them, but as soon as the engine gets warm we get the problem, and after a few hours when it cools down, we have no more problems.

 

[daren34]

check the shift interupt switch .

if it is bad it is almost imposible to take out of gear smoothly

your idle rpm should be 550 to 600

any higher and it will be hard to get out of gear

why did you replace the cables the first time?

cable routing is very critical on this setup
the lower cable will bind

if all else checks out ok then get your manual back out and reread the adjustment prosess

i had to do mine a couple of times to get it right (i tend to skip ahead)
ha ha

good luck daren

 

[MercPower!!]

ok, thanks

 

[MercPower!!]

also, the reason the cables were replaced is because they were original, and they started to fray and get stiff, so we had them replaced.