[jr007]

Dear People,

I have a 1973 Mercury 115 inline 6, which does not shift into Reverse.

It has a Mercury shift unit, and the shift unit when I move it back, goes into forwards, but does not throttle up.

When I move the lever forwards, it attempts to go into reverse (slight grinding is heard) but never fully engages.

I feel whomever owned the boat before me (just bought it) didn't know forwards from reverse.

However; mechanically, everything seems to move smoothly. With the engine off, there appears to be no binding. In looking at the engine shift points, when the cable is moved into reverse, it appears to have the correct movement. I'm at a loss.

There is a ROD on the lower front end which I believe is 'supposed' to move down when it is shifted into reverse--I can feel it 'attempt' to move, but--it does not really move.

Could there be something to the bottom end? (We just replaced the impeller).

Advise would be appreciated.

JR

[Scaaty]

Disconnect the shift cable at the motor..pull the plugs..turn the flywheel while someone turns the prop.
Shift it and see what happens..then take it from there

[Chris1956]

JR, It sounds like you have the motor shifter 180 degrees out of alignment. Those motors have two neutrals, and if you put the shifter into neutral and the lower unit into the wrong neutral, the shifting is backward.

The only cure is to drop the LU, turn the shifter past forward or reverse to get to the other neutral. This assumes that the control box is working properly.

[diaric]

two possible causes, previous owner had impeller etc changed and shifter wasn't all the way in forward when lower unit put back on and its not fully engaging reverse. or shift cable not moving enough to fully hit reverse. if you remove cable as suggest and engage shifter manually, and check prop, you can figure if external or internal problem. when you hit reverse, prop will lock one way and spin the other way