Merc 25 2 stroke/2 cyl remote shift difficulty

[nola mike]

I've had this thing for 7ish years? It doesn't get the attention of the other boat, and rarely needs it. Last season noticed that shifting into/out of gears was becoming difficult. This season (after it got hammered in a storm at the end of last season) it's much harder, particularly getting into fwd. No grinding or anything. The cable moves freely. Putting a wrench on the horizontal shift shaft is easier, but seems still harder than it should be. I'm trying to find everything that can be lubricated. Manual isn't much help (not sure if I'm using the right one). I can't find a good diagram of how the shift lever connects to the lower unit shift shaft, I'm guessing that that's where I need to start. #10 in the attached diagram I think. Not sure how to access it or if there's other things I should be looking at. Nothing before the horizontal shaft feels too tight. Once I get this going I'm going to have questions on setting up the timing sync. I'm not near the boat or the serial#...

 

[flyingscott]

Shift shaft connects behind the electric starter. Is the motor running when you are trying to shift ?

 

[nola mike]

Shift shaft connects behind the electric starter. Is the motor running when you are trying to shift ?

Yes, shifting is difficult with engine running or not. So does the starter need to be removed to access the shaft (guessing yes), and am I on the right track?

 

[flyingscott]

Yes the starter must be removed to get to the shift shaft. How does the lower unit oil look.

 

[nola mike]

Dunno, haven't checked. Starter turning over slowly as well, battery got submerged, starter got wet. Not sure where the problem is. Guess it would be a good time to take apart the starter and clean it...

 

[nola mike]

Dunno, haven't checked. Starter turning over slowly as well, battery got submerged, starter got wet. Not sure where the problem is. Guess it would be a good time to take apart the starter and clean it...

Removed the starter and found the other end of the shift shaft. Not much there to go wrong. Confirmed that there's no resistance at that point. Disconnecting the linkage and it shifts easily when I put a wrench on the shaft. Noticed that both my throttle cable and shift cable when disconnected sit 90' off from the linkage; both need to be twisted 90' and don't seem happy about it. Thinking that the torque that they're exerting on the linkages might be the/an issue. The end of the cable is pinned to the inner core. Is there a way to adjust it? If so it must be inside of the shift box ...