thanks again for the replies!

i did actually take the cable loose at the engine (took the nylon clevis out of the slide and moved the shift mechanism as far as i could) same result.

i don tmind shipping it at all really.

a guy on scream and fly said he thought i could buy a pair of cle lowers for what a rebuild on my sportmaster would cost and that they use the same internals. mercury also says there is no speed advantage under 85 mph using the sportmaster....

just a thought....

Here's some food for thought: the boat I'm buying just had twin 260's, 20" mids, with sportmasters. The owner said the boat never really liked the sportmasters. He said the boat ran better with Bob's nose coned lower units or CLE's. He may sell the left hand sportmaster. Let me know...

Not a problem there. We are in Versailles.

If you haven't already, replace the flo-torq plastic hub with a new one. Thought I lost a LH lower once and sat out an entire holiday weekend. Come to find out, the hub let go.

man i pulled the prop and checked the hub first thing....it looks in perfect shape. fits tight and no cracks. i was really hopin that would have been it.

the unit shifts in gear fine and will even hold power...it just starts jumping at about half throttle when tryin to plane out.

it blows...but its part of the deal. cant wait to get it back on the water...

Kind of odd that it lets loose once locked in. The clutch dog and the forward gear engagement teeth are both backcut, so once in gear, power should lock them in tighter and tighter, even if the leading edge or nose was rounded off some.

What case on what motor? 2.5 or 3.0? Sportmaster, Torqmaster, etc?

hi!

its a 2.5 sportmaster, 1.87 ratio counter unit.

upon inspection we found that the forward side of the clutch dog was rounded severely...and the dogs in the forward gear to a lesser extent.

the rest of the internals looked great! but i decided to let them rebuild the whole unit as they offered a nice warrantly and the price was cheaper than anyone else i had spoken to.

they attributed to improper cable adjustment (wich after the fact i noticed was a factor) and/ or lazy shifting. both over a prolonged period of time of course.

Yep, seen it and done it myself. I run Merc 2.5 CLE gearcases retrofitted to Johnson V8's, so way more torque than they see in a Merc application. Mine too round the clutch dog and forward gear, but have never actually given up. Gearsets are expensive though. Even used, it was cheaper to buy a used gearcase and rob parts rather than buy a forward/pinion and clutch dog. LH stuff is harder to find too.

At least you found the problem. Good luck.

yea the Merc gearset cost me 760 bucks, clutch dog was almost 200 and the labor was 300, cant remember the other items but those were the big tickets. i looked for a used cas and couldnt find any...not even parts! lol

I had the exact same problem. Waiting on parts. Lol