How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

[Newbie@boats]

I know when you need to take your outdirve off you need to put it in the foward position. My cable snapped and it will not budge(outdrive) How in the world am I supposed to take it off now?

 

[bacafrog]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Does not matter since it snapped. I would put the controls in forward, then pull the drive off. After you replace the cable is when it becomes important. You will have to manually make sure the cable is in the forward position, and then make sure the drive is in forward as well.

 

[Gary H NC]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Not ALL drives need to be in forward. It would help to post exactly the year,make and serial numbers of what the heck you are working on.

 

[Don S]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Does not matter since it snapped. I would put the controls in forward, then pull the drive off. After you replace the cable is when it becomes important.

Bull Hockey
You must put the drive in forward in order to line the shift shaft in the drive and the bellhousing so they will slide apart.

I know he has an alpha I on a 165 (470)
Raise the drive up and use a cresant wrench on the shift shafts and turn the foot straight for and aft so they will slide apart. Or you will be bending things and replacing parts you don't need to.


PS: IT would help a lot if you put what engine and outdrive you have in your signature so we know what you have. Then we don't have to ask each time.

 

[achris]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

You could drop the lower gearbox, then the intermediate shift shaft will drop lower enough to come out of the shoe in the upper shift shaft. Then you can pull the upper box.

 

[Newbie@boats]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Holy smokes thanks for all the fast respones!

I tryed to manually move the cable and still got nothing.

Now what I read from one answer is I can take the lower end of the out drive off then take the upper end to replace the cable?

Don S when you said Raise the drive up and use a cresant wrench on the shift shafts and turn the foot straight for and aft so they will slide apart...what do you mean by this can you explain it a little more?

Another question...If I cant get this cable to move is it possible my outdrive is shot inside?

 

[ziggy]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

when you said Raise the drive up and use a cresant wrench on the shift shafts and turn the foot straight for and aft so they will slide apart...what do you mean by this can you explain it a little more?

that's a pic of a mc-1 drive. looking from underneath in ft. of it. drive tilted up some. this is the shift coupler that slides together during drive assembly and disassembly . your's is alpha1 so may look a little different, but it's the same. in my pic. the drive is in neutral. you can see the parts can't slide fore and aft because they're turned. when in fwd. the coupler points fore and aft. straight with the boat. then things slide apart. this is the area ya'd put your cresent wrench onto and try to turn it straight (pointing fore and aft).

achris' idea sounds real good too. in the pic. if you remove the lower only, the intermediate shift shaft, the bottom one in the pic. will fall lower and out of the way allowing your to remove the upper w/o damage to the shift shafts.

 

[Don S]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Glad you seen this and posted your picture Ziggy, I really need to save that picture, but I never do. His drive is an Alpha I and looks just like it. Didn't change till the Gen II.

this is the area ya'd put your cresent wrench onto and try to turn it straight (pointing fore and aft).

One thing I forgot to mention when you turn it, have someone turn the prop CCW at the same time. That will allow the dog clutch in the lower to engage and allow the shifter to turn easier.

 

[Newbie@boats]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Let me ask this now though, do you guys think maybe the internals of the outdrive are bad since I cannot pull the cable and have the motor go into gear?

 

[Newbie@boats]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Also thanks for that picture! Took me a minute to figure it out but that makes sense to me now!

 

[Don S]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Hard to day about the drive, those cable die all the time, much more often than the drive.
When you drain the outdrive gear lube, look at the magnet and the gear lube. If there is a lot of heavy metal shavings on th magnet and metalic gear lube, you have big problems.

Ziggy, I have your picture and can now use it. Here it is.

 

[Newbie@boats]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

I did my outdrive oil and it was clean, no metal, nothing on the magnet.

What would cause that cable to stop moving at all?

I took that black housing off around the cable after I pulled it out of the back of the boat, tied it around a bar and pulled and it would not move.

Did it freeze up that bad inside the motor that it will not do anything until its replaced?

I just do not want to keep dumping money into the boat if the outdrive is shot.

 

[Don S]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

There is nobody here that can look at your discription or anyone elses discription on a forum and tell you if your drive is OK or not. That takes physically looking at something. Dissassembyl and inspection of parts. Yes, cables freeze up. Especially if there was an overheat and the coving melted off the cable. Then water gets on it and it rusts. But drives also go bad while people try to shift them with a bad cable.

This is where people like me earn a living. Going to schools by the manufacturers, being certified to work on drives, knowing what works and doesn't work, knowing what we are looking at when we see it.
A newbe that doesn't even know the names of things, darned sure isn't going to be able to figure out all that is wrong or could be wrong. No tools, no experience. Just posts on a forum by people that may or may not know what they are talking about.

 

[Bt Doctur]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Any chance you overheated recently? Sometines the cable is routed very near the Y pipe causing it to melt/fuse together.

 

[bacafrog]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Bull Hockey
You must put the drive in forward in order to line the shift shaft in the drive and the bellhousing so they will slide apart.

My apologizes Don S. I forgot all about doing that. From here on out I am keeping my mouth shut on technical stuff, so I don't trip over it again. I will leave the advice up to more experienced individuals.

 

[Newbie@boats]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

I finally got my out drive off, it took a lot of prying it was corred really bad.

So I got the old cable out but I can not figure out how to get that cable together. I guess you could call it the shift fork just slides on the cable I cannot get it to stay on the cable. Anybody know how to get this cable together?

 

[achris]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

In the back of the slider should be a grub screw, with lock wire around it. That's what keeps the cable together. If there are missing, check in the slider cavity in the upper box of the leg.

Chris.......

 

[Newbie@boats]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Alright, I finally got the cable in and the outdrive all sealed up with new seals.

I hooked up the cable to the out drive first moved the cable by hand and it worked no problems, fed it through to the boat hooked it up and it worked. Took a few mintues of adjusting it

Other than that, I filled it back up with outdrive oil, put in in foward, reverse got of the boat to see if it engaged or not and both positions were engaged.

Tomorrow if its not raining I will be taking it to the lake to take it maybe for a quick spin to see how it operates. I will be bringing tools with me just incase

Thanks for all your help!

 

[cr2k]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Also someone should mention that you do not tighten screw "A" tight. You want the cable to be able to twist or rotate in the slide, but you don't want any slop either. Hence the safety wire to hold the screw in place.

 

[achris]

Re: How do I take the outdrive off with a snapped shifter cable?

Also someone should mention that you do not tighten screw "A" tight. You want the cable to be able to twist or rotate in the slide, but you don't want any slop either. Hence the safety wire to hold the screw in place.

Quite correct, and it's in the manual...