1988 Bayliner 1510 Bass Trophy 50 HP Engine issues.

I was out using a recently installed fish finder to try and find some spots to fish this weekend. When I first got the boat in the water all was well, until it came time to dock. When I was trying to engage the engine into forward, it simply wasn't going. It was reving up but the motor wasn't actually going into drive. It would go into reverse easy enough but it was acting really weird going into forward. If you would push the control handle to the forward position it wouldn't really do anything. When you actually pushed forward a bit to give it some throttle it would "slam" into gear and start moving. I was reading a bit about a dog piece in a gearbox, but i'm really new to boating so i'm not sure what i'm dealing with. I'm extremely mechanical and feel I can fix this if it's a gear issue, but i can't find the gears anywhere, or this "dog" piece whatever it may be. I'm hoping I don't need a whole new lower unit, only because I can't find those either. Thanks in advance to anyone that may have had this issue and can offer some assistance.

Re: 1988 Bayliner 1510 Bass Trophy 50 HP Engine issues.

First thing I would check is the mounting brackets on the side of the motor that hold the throttle and shift cables in position and make sure one of the clamps didn't loosen up and let the bracket tab slip out of the groove in the end of the shift cable. Each clamp bracket has a tab that mounts in a grove in the throttle and shift cable and it's hard to see unless your familiar with the cable setup.
Don't be alarmed when checking the shift and throttle cables, the outer housing of the cables is what moves on a Force outboard and not the rod inside the cable itself, the rod is ajustable if need be, but acts more or less as an anchor for the throttle and shift cables. Kind of threw me in the begining until I figured out how the cables were designed to work.

max!