Shift linkage on a 57 bell boy with 57 Johnson 35 hp

[dobber]

Well I finally got the lower unit fixed. Get in river and I’m at half throttle and it’s running greT for about a half mile. Then noises , starts slowing down and before I know it we’re stopped and the whole damm engine has kicked up out of the water. I think that it popped out of forward and then went haywire. Man how do you get the shifter to keep the engine in forward.. we were able to get back to the marina and just to be safe I held the lever in the locked forward position. This old goat probably can’t take many more mishaps like that. And I can’t afford it. How do I know for sure those stupid cables are aligned perfectly.

[opposedtwin]

Disconnect the cables going to the controls. Shift it into reverse (by hand) and note the position of the shift lever. Do this for neutral and forward as well. Now hook the cables back up. Using the levers on the controls, put the motor in reverse. The shift lever (on the motor) should be in the exact same place as it was without the cable attached. Same scenario for neutral and forward. When the lever on the controls is in the all the way forward position, the shift lever on the motor should be all the way forward as well. Same scenario for reverse. When the lever on the controls is in the all the way back position, the shift lever on the motor should be all the way back as well. For neutral, the lever on the controls should be straight up and down in the "neutral" postion. Same for the shift lever on the motor.

If any of them are off a bit, you micro adjust the cable length by turning the black plastic disc (or the brass cylinder on the older style cables) one direction or the other in order to achieve what I described above.

Are you certain your controls are put together properly? The correct alignment of the gears on the bottom of the levers with the racks on the ends of the cables is essential. These are inside the box so you can’t see it unless you take the box apart. But IF the end play on the shift cable is the same from "neutral to forward" as it is from "neutral to reverse", it is fairly safe to assume they’re aligned correctly.

[frankr]

Something I’ve seen dozens of times: The inner core wire in the control cables breaks at the screws that hold the ends on. So somebody simply re-attaches the end to what’s left of the inner core wire (which by now is about 3/4" too short). That reduces the travel of the cable end by a like amount. Then it doesn’t have enough travel to go all the way between forward and reverse.

Moral: Back in "The Day". we used to replace the core wire. Nowadays, just replace the cable.

[chris-p]

I would:

1. Disconnect cables and run motor. If still acting up, the problem is NOT in the cables or control box.

If still jumps out of gear with cables disconnected and manually shifted, either…

a. The shift rod needs adjustment behind the oval door on leg of motor.
b. The shift handle needs to be adjusted.
c. The gears and or clutch dog is worn
d. There is an issue inside gearcase such as cradle, etc….

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