Boat stalls when shifted from reverse to neutral

[The Stone]

Hello all, I recently bought my first boat, it is a 1985 checkmate exciter with a 350 and a
n alpha drive. I tested the boat for the first time yesterday, and it did very well. The only problem that i noticed was that the engine stalled only when going from reverse into neutral. Can someone tell me how to go about fixing this issue? Thank you very much,
Christian

 

[Diplomat82]

Welcome to the site!
Sounds like either a bad shift cable or one that needs adjusting. You can detach the lower shift cable from the Interrupter plate and see how hard it is to pull. Lower shift cable should move smoothly without much effort. Check the upper also.


Here is a Merc Bulletin on adjusting/ inspecting.


www.boatfix.com/merc/Bullet/89/89_04.pdf

 

[Gimme Fuel]

Likely shift-interrupt switch. Very common for that to fail on old alpha setups. Unfortunately Merc redesigned the switch and the old style is NLA. Have to replace entire shift bracket to new style. But $130 bucks is better than banging off of docks.

 

[The Stone]

If I ordered the new setup, would I need to re-adjust everything?

 

[Diplomat82]

You need to determine what is bad first. If it is a cable a new updated interrupter switch isn't going to solve the problem.
Test the upper and lower cables first. Check for cracks, kinks, ease of movement. Check each cable separately.

 

[Gimme Fuel]

Test the interrupter switch with engine running. Use your finger to quickly bump the switch (note: will always stall if held too long). If it stalls the motor after brief activation, it is bad. Easy peazy.