Ok be gentle I am new to the wonderful world of boating and like many of us got what i felt was a great deal *$800 on a 1986 Four-Winns freedom boat with a mercruiser 140 and alpha one drive. here are the serial numbers I have .
A617036 motor
A597019 Alpha
A606387 ??? was on the giant folder of documents he gave me with the boat.
So We took it out yesterday for the first time and it did pretty well at fist. Started up and ran fine no real issue short of it seemed a bit hard to turn and it sort of felt as if it was constantly drifting to the right. Fyi I am a fairly large guy so i chalked that up to fat man on a little boat. As we came in to dock the boat at the ramp i noticed it was neutral was well for lack of a better word wandering. When i came to what should be neutral it was still going forward. I then went into reverse a little to realign and it had a similar experience I found neutral but it was well forward of center. As you can imagine this little constant back and forth dance of finding neutral in its new random location each time made for an amazing first time experience. I did check the shift interrupter switch and when i depressed it the engine died which if i read correctly that means the switch itself is working. I noticed once i got it home as well that i had a fair amount of water in the bilge as i looked over the bellows it seems my shift cable bellows has split and come apart from the hose clamp. I assume to replace that I need to pull the lower portion of the drive. I did start it up today and run through the gears and neutral seemed to be where it should be. however when going into gear it made what seemed like alot of clanking and seemed slow to engage. This of course could be normal but i would like to know what you guys think. if you need videos of any of the problems i can add them as well. Any help would be appreciated.
ps
sorry for the wall of text
A617036 motor
A597019 Alpha
A606387 ??? was on the giant folder of documents he gave me with the boat.
So We took it out yesterday for the first time and it did pretty well at fist. Started up and ran fine no real issue short of it seemed a bit hard to turn and it sort of felt as if it was constantly drifting to the right. Fyi I am a fairly large guy so i chalked that up to fat man on a little boat. As we came in to dock the boat at the ramp i noticed it was neutral was well for lack of a better word wandering. When i came to what should be neutral it was still going forward. I then went into reverse a little to realign and it had a similar experience I found neutral but it was well forward of center. As you can imagine this little constant back and forth dance of finding neutral in its new random location each time made for an amazing first time experience. I did check the shift interrupter switch and when i depressed it the engine died which if i read correctly that means the switch itself is working. I noticed once i got it home as well that i had a fair amount of water in the bilge as i looked over the bellows it seems my shift cable bellows has split and come apart from the hose clamp. I assume to replace that I need to pull the lower portion of the drive. I did start it up today and run through the gears and neutral seemed to be where it should be. however when going into gear it made what seemed like alot of clanking and seemed slow to engage. This of course could be normal but i would like to know what you guys think. if you need videos of any of the problems i can add them as well. Any help would be appreciated.
ps
sorry for the wall of text
