Hey all I’m reviving this thread. I never resolved the issue but now that the boat is on the hard I’d like to figure out what’s going on. As a refresher:
Last year when I put the boat in the water the VP280 went into reverse once ….and then never again for the rest of the season. It has gear oil. I tried adjusting the trunion. Everything moves properly when shifted at the helm. If I disconnect linkages and shift the lobe manually it will shift into F, R and N. The shift cable is properly seated in its anchor plate on the drive. I can’t seem to find a sweet spot where the lobe travels to a full position in BOTH forward AND reverse though. When I played with the trunion I could get it to do one or the other. It worked the prior season and nothing changed with the linkages since then .
There are a few variables I can think of:
-I had done some transom work and put in a new transom plate (among all other changes associated with a transom rebuild). The new plate seemed slightly different than the prior one, but I don’t see how it could affect shifting? And it did go into reverse *once* with the new plate.
-when I manually shifted it into reverse I realized that the leg pops up. I don’t know if this is related or not…but I’m wondering if the one time it actually worked in reverse the leg popped up and something didn’t reset correctly to allow it to shift again after that?
-I never tried adjusting link #17 (in parts diagram from post #17) but that never moved in the 7 years I’ve had the boat so can’t think why I should mess with it?
-I did replace the shifter at some point. I can’t remember how long ago that was. More than a season ago. I don’t use the boat that often and I use reverse even less often. It’s hard for me to believe that this could be a problem associated with when I changed the shifter but…anything is possible?
Any thoughts on what to try next? Thanks !