Shift Cable Removal

Hey everyone, I have what I believe to be a 250 drive on an 84 eliminator sport. The throttle cable works fine and is smooth to move when the drive is not engaged. As soon as we put it in gear it is extreemley difficult to throttle up and down to power the boat.

Couple friends of mine with merc drives said over time the shift cables get pretty corroded inside and can cause this problem so I was going to try and replace it this weekend. Did some searching online and couldn't find an actual diagram or steps necessary to do the removal and install for it.

anyone have any advice?

Re: Shift Cable Removal

HI Steve
I just did it on my SX drive - not sure how your drive is, but your friends are correct... a corroded shift cable makes it very hard to gear in and out. On my drive it was a simple procedure - disconnect both ends from the drive and the control box, slide the new one from the outdrive into the boat, connect both ends and done. I marked the old one before disconnecting to match the length of the threads on the new one.
I know from reading some of these forums that some outdrives need the cables threaded through transoms or something like that, but many times a careful and systematic observation of the existing one will show you exactly how to replace it. Is like reverse engineering...
Hope this helps at all.