won't go in reverse

Hi all,

I bought a 2003 Tracker Pro Crappie 175 with 40 HP Mercury outboard. We used it twice without any problem. When we used it the third time, it worked fine for a while. Then it quit going in reverse. We took it to a Mercury repair place and the guy opened it up. He did something to it and turned the prop by hand. Then it shifted into reverse when using the throttle. He said it probably won't happen again.

We took it back to the lake and unloaded it. When we tried to reverse it, it wouldn't work again.

Does anyone have any advice? We don't even know where to start. It is our first boat. Our trolling motor is broken too, but that will be on another post.

Thanks for any suggesetions,
Peke

Re: won't go in reverse

I can say that better, I think. The repair guy opened the cowl and unhooked the shifter cable. Then he put it in reverse gear manually. Then he hooked it back up and had us move the throttle to reverse. It worked. Somewhere I read that you should NEVER put the throttle in reverse if the motor is not running. If so, why did he have us put it in reverse?

Anyway, it wouldn't go in reverse once on the lake again an hour later.

We don't know if the shift cable is stretched out or if the control box is messed up. Is there a way to tell which one is the problem? We pulled on the cable after unhooking it, but it didn't move so I guess it is not completely broken. (Found this info on this forum.)

We wrote down all the info we found on this forum step by step. We tried to put the earmuffs on and attached the hose. We couldn't get a seal on the earmuffs, so we didn't start the boat. Are they supposed to seal? Leak water? Do they get a suction AFTER the motor is started?

The boat repair guy said it would be $400 to repair.

Please help if you can.
Peke