3.0L Apla Gen 1 Stalls when shifting to Forward or reverse after Bellow replcaement.

[Chobes]

Hello all, Thank you in advance for your responses!

1986 16' Sea Ray MCM I/O 140 4cyl. 181 CID S/N A394995
MerCarb 2bbl (1 idle adjustment screw)
Block S/N 2770087 2 85
Alpha 1 Out Drive S?N A530190

I just recently changed the bellows on my Sea Ray. Put the lower unit back on bell housing, tightened up everything and started it!

Idles fine at about 700 RPM once choke opens. Go to ingage it into forward and it stalls. Did it again as fast as i could and it engaged. put it back in neutral and it stalled again.

Any help?

Wondering if I am going to have to adjust the shift cable? When i frist seperated the lower unit from the bell housing I didn't move the throttle to full forward. when i put the outdrive back on I did put the throttle fully in forward gear.

What do you think??

 

[Bondo]

Re: 3.0L Apla Gen 1 Stalls when shifting to Forward or reverse after Bellow replcaeme

Ayuh,... Donno what ya did, but the lower shift cable ain't workin', 'n is bound up...

Pull the drive, 'n start Lookin' 'round...

 

[Chobes]

Re: 3.0L Apla Gen 1 Stalls when shifting to Forward or reverse after Bellow replcaeme

Do you think I have to open the drive?? When I pulled the drive off with out putting it in forward gear have anything to do with it??? just baffled?????? I did have to pull the shift cable out to replace the bellow! obviously, not sure if i routed the cable correctly when i hooked it back up. that possible also?? thanks for the input. trying to avoid pulling drive off again.

 

[stonyloam]

Re: 3.0L Apla Gen 1 Stalls when shifting to Forward or reverse after Bellow replcaeme

Yeah the outdrive will have to come off, but a little diagnostic work is in order before it comes off. The simplest explanation is that the shift slide is not engaging the lever on the upper shift shaft properly. Try this: Engine off, shift to F, try to spin the prop counterclockwise, should lock, and spin freely clockwise. Shift to N, should spin both ways, R lock CW, free CCW. If it is not shifting correctly the little wheel on the upper shift shaft lever is probably not between the arms of the shift slide on the end of the shift cable and things are binding up. Just need to make sure it is correct when you put it back together. If it is shifting correctly you have other problems, look to the lower shift cable. I am assuming that you mean that you removed the entire outdrive, that you call the lower, and did not split the outdrive. Check the top of the intermediate shift shaft and the bottom of the upper ss t make sure they were not damaged when you took the outdrive off. Good luck.

 

[Chobes]

Re: 3.0L Apla Gen 1 Stalls when shifting to Forward or reverse after Bellow replcaeme

Thanks all, i will check it out tonight and see what i can find!

 

[Don S]

Re: 3.0L Apla Gen 1 Stalls when shifting to Forward or reverse after Bellow replcaeme

When i frist seperated the lower unit from the bell housing I didn't move the throttle to full forward.

It's possible you bent the shift shaft, either the one in the bellhousing or the one in the drive.
If it's bent, you could still get it together, but the bend would put an extra bind on things and be enough to engage the shift interrupt switch.

 

[Chobes]

Re: 3.0L Apla Gen 1 Stalls when shifting to Forward or reverse after Bellow replcaeme

Well, I separated the out-drive from the bell housing enough to see that the shift shaft lever is between the guides on the shift slide at the end of the cable. When I engage the out-drive in to forward gear and spin the propeller CCW direction it locks (sometimes) if i spin it a little hard it will keep spinning. the same goes for when i put it in Reverse and spin it CW. Don you mentioned a bent shift lever? how could i check that?
Stonyloam, i did pull the lower unit off the bell-housing then removed the bell to replace the bellows. where is the intermediate shift shaft and the upper shift shaft? I am still learning about his boat! I'm pretty handy when it comes to cars, boats it is going to take me a little time to familiarize myself with the terminology and component names!
Thanks again for all the reply's. I'm sure we will be talking soon!!!

 

[Fishermark]

Re: 3.0L Apla Gen 1 Stalls when shifting to Forward or reverse after Bellow replcaeme

Stonyloam, i did pull the lower unit off the bell-housing then removed the bell to replace the bellows.

Just to eliminate confusion - the lower unit usually refers to the bottom part of the outdrive. So it sounds like you took the complete OUTDRIVE off of the bell housing. The outdrive consists of two parts - commonly referred to as the upper and lower units.

where is the intermediate shift shaft and the upper shift shaft?

The intermediate shift shaft is usually the one that gets bent when you remove the outdrive without being in forward gear. It is pictured here:

It sits in the outdrive and mates with the "shoe" in the transom assembly. Everything needs to be in forward gear as that puts the shafts straight forward, fore and aft, and allows the outdrive to come off. You can separate the two halves of the outdrive and remove the intermediate shaft easily and see if it is bent.

 

[DFW Miles]

Re: 3.0L Apla Gen 1 Stalls when shifting to Forward or reverse after Bellow replcaeme

Chobes, I recently had the same issue after removing my '88 alpha one outdrive. It shifted fine before removal but after everything was together it would engage the shift interrupt switch going into forward and reverse. The lower shift cable just needed to be replaced. Sounds like that's what you are going to have to do. There is a possibility that you damaged the shift shaft though. Did you have to fight with the outdrive to get it off / back on? If so then you might have bent it. If it slid off and on fairly easily then it's unlikely that it got bent in the process.