Lower shift cable...

[My4winnsLost]

I have a 1988 four winns with a gm 3.0 I4 and an OMC Cobra outdrive. The first time I had it out the outdrive was clunking like it was coming in and out of gear. A friend of a friend who hopped on my boat to help out said it was probably the lower cable, either out of adjustment or about to go bad. He tinkered with it for a few minutes and made it easier to shift, but I still had the clunking isssue. This weekend I had it out and when I went to put it back in forward gear I started moving backward. After I pulled it out of the water I cranked the engine and the prop was spinning, so I'm pretty sure teh cable either broke or got jammed in the reverse position. I don't know much about boats, but I'm a pretty good shadetree mechanic when it comes to trucks, so I think I can handle changing the cable if I had a little instruction. Can you guys give me heads up as to what's involved? Thanks!

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: Lower shift cable...

Howdy!

The first heads up is buy the correct OMC service manual for your OMC eng+ vertical drive.

Then do a little search on this site for OMC Cobra Shift cable and do a little reading.

Go here: http://www.hastings.org/~stuart/cobra/ and do some more reading. (If you continue to use it the way it is you'll be replacing the drive!:^)

Then come back here if required to fill in the blanks!

(Copy/paste that hastings link...this site isn't rendering it correctly)



Regards,

Rick

 

[Randy Mac]

Re: Lower shift cable...

M4WL I'm one of those shadetree maniacs also. It is not very hard to install a new lower shift cable if you have the manual, time and patience. The hardest part for me was taking off the pivot housing. You need a 1/2inch hex wrench to take it off with I didn't have one in my tools so I finally found one at the local Auto Zone it was a 1/2 inch with a 1/2 inch drive for a rachet. It didn't take very long after I got all the parts. Check all the bellows and hose's out while you have it off. Just like HT32 wrote the www.hastings.org/~stuart/cobra/ is a very good site with alot of important info

 

[My4winnsLost]

Re: Lower shift cable...

Where should I start on this project? The outdrive is stuck in gear, and when I try to shift it just binds the black plastic adjust tube on the bracket. Am I correct in assuming the cable is at fault, or could there be much bigger issues? I talked to the previous owner, and he said he was hearing the clunking noise too. He ran it about 2 hours like that, and I ran it about 2 hoursdid.... I destroy the gears, or is there still hope? Let me know... need some help. There' never been a boat parked under my shadetree before.

 

[HT32BSX115]

Re: Lower shift cable...

This is hard to diagnose here from your discription but if you mean the black plastic tube on the shift bracket is bending then the shift cable could be either jammed or the shift rod could be jammed in the drive. If the shift cable outer covering is black you may have the older cable that does fail in this manner. If you have the red outer covering it's the newer cable but it still could have failed. You need to read the info on the hastings site and an OMC manual to be familiar with the terms, parts and procedures. Anything we tell you before you become familiar with the drive shift system will not make a lot of sense.

We'll all be spinning our gears as it were.

If it's only "stuck' in gear when running in water but will shift out of gear when it's shut down or running on a "muff" Then it could be the ESA module, switches and/or control linkage. If it won't shift out of gear when shut down(or running out of water on muffs) then it could be the cable/linkage/adjustment or an internal problem in the drive etc.


All this stuff will become clearer when you get a manual and become familiar with the info on the Hastings site.


Regards,


Rick

Where should I start on this project? The outdrive is stuck in gear, and when I try to shift it just binds the black plastic adjust tube on the bracket. Am I correct in assuming the cable is at fault, or could there be much bigger issues? I talked to the previous owner, and he said he was hearing the clunking noise too. He ran it about 2 hours like that, and I ran it about 2 hoursdid.... I destroy the gears, or is there still hope? Let me know... need some help. There' never been a boat parked under my shadetree before.