I dropped the lower unit to check the impeller, and after I put the lu back on, the throttle was very hard to shift into forward. Took it on the water and had no reverse and when I put it in neutral it was in forward gear, pretty crazy. I have been trouble shooting for a week trying to figure this out. I have taken apart the control box and checked everything. I think maybe I bent the shift rod. Here is what it is doing. The throttle cables work perfectly engaging into forward, neutral, and reverse while unhooked. But as soon as I hook the cable to the shifter thing the throttle gets hard to push and once it goes into forward it gets stuck. I got it to go into forward and neutral sometimes but as for reverse there is no hope. I can move it into forward, neutral, and reverse manually, but I am having trouble when I hook up the cable. I noticed that where it used to be in neutral is now in gear just by looking at the position of the throttle cable, so I know something is out of whack, but cannot determine whats going on. Kind of hard to explain, but maybe someone knows whats wrong?? I pulled the lu like 5 times since and cannot figure it out. I tried to leave it in neutral when putting the lu back on, but the shift rod seems to get hit during the process and always goes into gear. I am assuming I did something when I dropped the lower unit, or I am not putting it back on correctly bc it worked fine before this. Also I noticed the shift rod was wedged against the side of the tunnel it sits in and not in the direct center but not sure if this is the prob. Thanks for any response. The motor is 1988 Johnson v4 looper 140hp with omc controls.
