Shifter Dog Not Straight

[kencat]

I have to say thanks for the all the help so far guys. Need some more though.

I have the upper and lower housings pretty much together. I notice though that with the drive in forward gear the shift shaft dog is not perfectly aligned straight forward. Looking at the old drive the dog is straight.

I have read the post " Problem Selecting Neutral -SE106" by Cresco750, and this sounds like a similar issue. I estimate the front of the dog is off by 1 mm to 1/16" in relation to the side walls. Visually it is evident. I have attached a few pics.

You mentioned a possible machining issue between the spline and the dog section, which is what this looks like. I would like to know if this is a known issue now, and if there is a correct part available. I do not want to go to all the work of installing the drive, putting the boat in (30' cruiser), and having to pull it all apart again to change the shifter shaft. It could be the splined shaft in the gear housing causing this as well.

At this point I'm thinking I should tear apart the old drive and use the shift shaft from it. At least it would confirm whether the SEI shift shaft is suspect. This is all a lot of extra work though, and if you guys have a corrected shaft please let me know.

Kencat.

[vail426]

I do not see a problem with that. I can't see how it would affect anything...

[kencat]

Hi vail246,

Have you read Cresco750's thread? Sounds like exactly the same potential issue. I don't know how far off his shift shaft was, or what the final resolution was. I asked my wife to look at it tonight, just asking her if the dog looked like it was pointing straight ahead. She saw the same thing I do, with the dog cocked toward neutral position. I'm going to take the old drive apart and try that shift shaft. We'll see how that looks.

[admin]

We haven't had any other reports regarding this other than the other poster, but it certainly does not look straight. The shift lever may be the culprit, please let me know what you find. I believe we checked a bunch of them after the other poster and didn't find any issues.

[Cresco750]

Hi vail246,

Have you read Cresco750's thread? Sounds like exactly the same potential issue. I don't know how far off his shift shaft was.

Ok, mine is off centre even more than yours; maybe twice as much. One of the obvious issues it causes is that it makes installation of the outdrive difficult because the "foot" on the intermediate shift shaft won't easily slide into the "shoe" of the upper shaft. I had to manipulate mine with a screwdriver in order to get them to engage, which in turn ends up putting a preload on the whole shift linkage in favor of forward gear. This then produces a extremely positive lock / ratchet in forward gear but a noticeably weaker ratchet in reverse even with extreme cable adjustments. I'm wondering whether this preload is a cause of my shifting issues, ie the shift linkage has to be moved further than normal in the other direction in order for neutral and reverse?

[kencat]

I have to report that after installing the drive onto the boat, the shifting seems to be fine. NO adjustments made to the shift cable linkages. More time on the water will be needed and enjoyed.

[vail426]

Not surprised..