no reverse

Hi I have a 86 mercruiser 4 cyl 470 190 hp with a alpha one outdrive, serial number is B436753, I replaced the shift cable , and was not getting reverse all the time, this was a pain when trying to leave the dock, anyway yesterday it did the same thing , not going into reverse and I gave it more throttle, sometimes this worked, well I heard a bang and that was it, I put it in forward ,tried to get around the water without braking anything put on the trailer and found out when in forward the prop would lock , in netural it would spin freeley , when in reverse it also would spin freely, did I brake the gears in reverse, and what would I have to do to fix this, I know what i did was wrong and now I will have to pay the price, I just hope I can do it my self, I have had the outdrive off before to do minor things like changing the water pump , Bruce

Re: no reverse

Disconnect the shift cable from the engine, then try to put the drive into gear by pushing and pulling the cable. Have someone turning the prop to see if it locks.
It may be that you never got the cable adjusted properly when you replaced the cable.

Re: no reverse

Disconnect the shift cable from the engine, then try to put the drive into gear by pushing and pulling the cable. Have someone turning the prop to see if it locks.
It may be that you never got the cable adjusted properly when you replaced the cable.

Click to expand...

And just make sure you do all that with the ENGINE OFF

Re: no reverse

Thank you for that info , I did what you said, my son was able to not turn the prop when I pulled on the cable , we did both clockwise and counterclock wise to make sure and it would not turn when cable was put to the test pushing and pulling like you said , I lost a lot of sleep last night , but now can relax knowing that my out drive was not ruined, I will take this to the boat place to adjust the cable, I just didnt have much luck doing it myself, eventhough I know it is a simple thing, and have followed the instructions on adjusting the cable, at least I saved the installation price of the work done, Bruce

Re: no reverse

Try doing it yourself first. Pull the cable out, lock the prop, and set it so the middle of the brass barrell to the middle of the eyelet is exactly 6 inches.

Re: no reverse

Look Here:

http://www.sterndrives.com/replace_alpha_shiftcable.html

For good instructions on adjusting the shift cable. Good luck.

Re: no reverse

Or here
http://www.boatfix.com/merc/Techbk/94/94hsa2.pdf