Throttle Cable play/slop

[dogsandaboat]

Hello all. I've been using this site quite a bit after buying a used boat (88 Skeeter fish and ski Mariner 115 4 cyl.) that has been very "backyard mechaniced". I have found most of my answers to my problems here and I thank everyone on this site for the information.
However I have not found an answer for my latest issue I am having after finally getting my boat on water. I had a problem with high idle, so I adjusted my throttle cable per the service manual. When I did this I would only get half throttle with the lever all the way forward. After diving into this issue this weekend I found that the plastic connector on the teleflex throttle cable that attaches to the motor moves about 1/4"-3/8" on the end of the throttle cable. This is causing my throttle not to close all the way at idle and also not allowing full range of throttle.
If I reach back and push the throttle back until the idle set screw is at it's stop the motor idles fine, but when I give it throttle and go back to idle it has to be pushed back by hand to get correct idle.
Is this fix as simple as replacing the throttle cable or am I missing something?

 

[dogsandaboat]

Re: Throttle Cable play/slop

Maybe bad wording on what the issue I was having was. The problem turned out that the bushing that sits in the groove of the drive gear/cam had come out and was stuck in the groove limiting the range of motion for the throttle cable. I did order new cables anyway, the old cables seemed to move freely when disconneced but the new cables are twice as smoothe.