Thanks to this forum board

I have a 1980 (Johnson) 140 hp outboard that I have had for 7 years. Had control cables replaced 3 years ago, and no problems after that with idle or shifting. Just before the 4th of July had overheat and cable control problems again, so I took it to a local AUTHORIZED repair shop. They replaced impellar,control cables,fuel filter and fuel line bulb. When I went and picked it up they said it had a rough idle and probably needed a carburater rebuild, but to take it and try it.
Rough Idle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It would not idle unless the idle start lever was raised some. To try and get it into gear, you had to be quick and push idle start lever down and push into gear and quickly give it throttle to get underway. Shifting from forward to reverse was impossible. As soon as you hit neuteral the motor died, which made trying to get into a boat slip difficult. The shop manager told me I needed a carb rebuild, I asked him why it didn't have this problem when I brought it in, I didn't think the carb got gummed up in 2 weeks from sitting in his shop. I'm an old biker (73) and worked on plenty of motorcycles, so I'm pretty understanding of, when something causes a different problem, go back and retrace your steps.
Don't know a thing about outboards so I came here and tried to find my problem. Thats when I found out about the link and sync procedeure after replacing cables. I went down to my boat and checked the roller cable arm adjustmrnt and from info I gathered from this site, found that it was adjusted improperly and I had no spark advance at all at start. Adjusted roller arm so I had proper idle and forward advance and now she runs like a top!
I am very concerned that this shop was trying to get me to pay for a carb rebuild when I didn't need it. This is a very respectable shop on our lake and don't think it was a mechanics error. I had told the shop manager that I thought it was a sync and link problem, but he told me he still wanted to look at my carbs. At 80 dollars a hour I'm sure he did!
Anyway--THANKS for this site---it saved me hundreds of dollars on a repair I didn.t need!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Thanks to this forum board

It is possible that 3 years ago the cable was adjusted incorrectly to overcome/mask the link & sync adjustment.
The cable adjustment is completely separate from the link & sync and slightly more involved than just adjusting the trunnion to push the throttle back to the idle stop. (All in the OMC manual)
I guess I'm saying don't be too quick to blame the repairer he may have installed the cable correctly and added to that there would be no reason to alter the link & sync for a cable change.
Glad it's worked out for you.