888 (same as alpha I believe) slightly hard shifting

[TahitiSteve]

I've been having slight problems getting out of gear, both from forward and reverse. When I bring the throttle back to neutral the boat stays in gear, give it a little bump past neutral and it comes out of gear (from forward bump past neutral toward reverse, from reverse bump forward).
I've adjusted the engine cut out barrell and no setting helped. I also lubricated the shift cables, which are barely under a year old (replaced them around or before the middle of the season last year and had many trouble free hours with them. I probably only have ~15 shifts in them since relubricating the cables, so maybe I just haven't worked it enough.
Anything else I should try--or if it doesn't fix itself from here is the only option new cables?

[DogHouse]

So you have adjusted the cables for the cut out switch. If you haven't already tried this, the next thing might be to put a meter on the leads and make sure that the ground is solid when the switch closes. If that thing isn't working then the drive will be very hard to get out of gear. I found that out the hard way back when I ran an Alpha!
-brian

[mickeyfinn]

I don't think the 888 is the same as an alpha. I believe it is a #1 drive. May be wrong but I am pretty sure I saw that somewhere when looking up mydrive.

[TahitiSteve]

If you haven't already tried this, the next thing might be to put a meter on the leads and make sure that the ground is solid when the switch closesI can hear the engine stutter right as I hit neutral and also have killed it with the switch by hand. It seems as though the kill switch is hitting just barely before the drive is ready to come out of gear, then when I bump it past neutral the switch hits again and it goes into neutral.

[TahitiSteve]

Mickey--I just meant that I think the shift setup is the same between an 888 and an Alpha since more people would be familiar with the Alpha.
[ May 19, 2003, 08:52 PM: Message edited by: TahitiSteve ]

[superV]

TahitiSteve:
Mickey--I just meant that I think the shift setup is the same between an 888 and an Alpha since more people would be familiar with the Alpha. They are about the same just diff. material and gear design but funtion the same.
And the post above about them being #1 drives they are sometimes called I drives due to the lifting eye on the upper cap.