Bravo 1 stuck in gear.. Videos attached.. HELP
 

As you know, I was out the other day and on the way back to dock I ran the boat port motor out of gas (yes I know stupid). Well the boat was in drive when it ran out. I did throttle it down but when the motor died it was at low rpm's in forward. After gassing up I couldn't get the boat to shift back into neutral. I played around with it. I would have to hold the shifter back to trick it into thinking it was in neutral and then it would start in forward gear and not allow me to shift back. Today I tried to pull the drive (Bravo 1) and the shift cable was so tight that I couldnt get to the shift fork to disconnect the cable so I had to drain the drive and take off the rear plate. I then took out the carter pink and disconnected the shift fork and pulled the drive off. I was able to get the prop to spin in free motion like it was in neutral but cant get the mechanism to go far enough rcounter clockwise to actually be in the neutral position. What I mean is the shift fork wont stick out the back side of the drive at all far enough to even attach to the cable. I attached two videos where you can see the play in the gears. Both drives were rebuilt 2 years ago and all the bearings and teeth look imaculate. I am wondering if something is just out of alignment. Any ideas? On the right side of the bottom circle clutch "thingy" I can feel a small ramp that I beleive is supposed to go onto the forward surface and life the whole mechanism UP to put it in neutral. Did something just get turned out of wack or froze up? There are NO metal parcels anywhere
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5lmP1laFMs[/YOUTUBE]

Im guessing since 45 people ahve looked at this and there are absolutely no responses I might have struck a real problem.

Have you actually pulled the drive off?

after it died did you put it in neutral or did you drive back with it in gear running the starboard engine? how do you run out of fuel on one engine?

Yes I have completely pulled the drive. When I pulled the drive I disconnected the shifter fork to take the cable out of the picture. It still wouldn't shift into other gears. I have two tanks on my boat and each one is hard wired to the other motor. I was literally about 300 yards from the dock when it ran out lol. And NO it wouldn't go back into neutral so I had to leave it in drive and ran the starboard motor back in.

I'll talk to my guys who know more than me tomorrow and see what I can find out. Seems wierd I don't think running out of gas and shifting problems are related.

Where your hand is in the first part of the video is the shift lever. Where you pulled the "cotter pin" that attaches to the link bar. The link bar attaches to your shift cable and has a "latch" which on the rear has is u shaped and hooks into the link bar. If that isn't attached properly it might be jamming inside the case. You said you could get it into neutral when you pulled the cotter pin? When your drive was off did the the shift lever at the helm operate smoothly? If they did I think your problem is in that link bar area. If you're going to do your own work get yourself a Merc or Seloc shop manual. It's well worth the twenty or thirty bucks.

Yes the cable works fine when I had the cotter pin pulled from the link bar where it attaches to the shift lever. This is how I narrowed down that the problem seems to be in the shifting mechanism above it. I cant rotate that shifting assembly (or atleast cant figure out how) to get it to engage into any other gears while the drive is installed. When the drive was off I finally for the prop to spin freely but still seemed as if the shift work was in a forward position. What I mean by this is I couldn;t ever get the link bar to come out of the front side of the drive far enough to attach the shifter cable.

Ky,
you need to rotate the input shaft on the front of the drive in order to shift it.
The driven gears have brass rings on them. They have a high and a low side to them. If you attemt to shift it without turning the input shaft it will hit one of the brass rings and seem to be locked up. With the input shaft turning and the driven gears rotating. the space between the rings moveds up and down. The shift fork cam hits the high side of a ring when you move the shift lever and forces it out of one gear and into neutral or the next gear.
So to fix your problem.. rotate the input shaft with pressure on the shift lever.. it will then shift into each gear.
Put it into fwd and reconnect your linkage with the cotter pin. Now rotate shaft and shift into rew.. linkage will be sticking out of the front of the drive, so you can connect cable as it is slid back into place.

Hope that helps..

I have a switch wired to bypass the safey neutral switch. When the motor dies in gear, I push switch and either start in in gear (not recommended because of safety issues) or pull the tether cord so it wont start, but will turn over as you pull back on the shift lever..

Dick

Since the drive is reinstalled now but still stuck in forward.....would cranking the motor and pulling back on the shift control do the same thing as rotating the shaft and pushing on the shift lever. I drained 80% of the lube out but I figure as long as I am just trying to shift it and not run it it should be ok to try and perform this task? All the bearings still have plenty of lube on them. OR is this a task that needs to be performed with the drive off? To get everything synced back in order. My question really is what causes this to happen where the boat wont come out of drive back into neutral and how will just rotating the shaft to get it to shift change this?

Can you access the nuetral saftey switch to hold it in manually while cranking the motor? Not sure I'd keep on forcing the shifter into N to trip the switch. Might chance creating another problem.

You can roll the motor over and pull back on the lever and it will go back to neutral. All that is necessary is have the pinion gear driving the two driven gears. As they rotate the high and low spots on the bump rings (as they have been called) will allow the shift fork to move the cone clutch up and down. If the driven gears are not turning, the cam and fork will not move if the bump rings are at their highest and lowest spot. Sometimes if they are rotated so they are not at the highest point, you can make it shift back into neutral. But yours stopped at the worst spot, and wont allow the fork to move.

I have drained down a drive so the oil level was just below the bottom gear and fired up the motor to see what happens inside with oil being pumped up from the lower, etc. As the gears turn you can see the space between them jump up and down as the high and low spots converge. That is what makes it work, so it must be turning to shift it properly.

Hope that helps.
Dick

PS. I should only take about 2 revolutions of the motor to get it shifted back to neutral. Go ahead and do it with the back cap off.. it wont hurt it.

US1,
you are correct, you never want to pull back on the shift lever if the motor isnt turning. He has it stuck in the farthest postion.. pulling on the shift lever will break the linkage in the drive. He will have to bypass the switch or hot wire it to turn it over.
I have a spot in the engine compartment, when I lash valves to turn the motor over.. And a switch on the dash to bypass the safety switch.. when the motor quits or I run out of gas. :)

Shift Yoke....
 

It is possible that during your shifting mishap that the ramp on the shift yoke has become significantly gouged making shifting all the more difficult. I would recommend you inspect the yoke again and replace it if worn excessively, and replace the shift cable.

One thing I would be cautios of is that while trying to force it into neutral, you might have stretched your cable a bit causing some misalignment issues. If you have a shift linkage alignment tool, I would check your shift mechinism in the engine compartment prior to really running the boat. Just my 2 cents...

Finally fixed last night... The clutch was stuck in some kind of a bind... I took a rubber mallet and knocked the clutch up and down a little then stood on the prop and turned the motor over a few times... After that I was able to put a ton of force back on the shift control and turn the key and it finally slipped back into neutral. After this I tested forward and reverse and neutral numerous times and it worked fine. Not sure what wAs stuck but something was unhappy

I'm serious... check your cable adjustment with the mercury tool. If you are out of adjustment, you WILL eat your drive. Just becasue it shifts in and out, it does not mean it is fully engaged...

I don't think there will be any wear on the shift fork cam. It is pretty hard material. The motor stopped for lack of fuel. So nothing inside should be gouged or worn, if it was running fine before that (meaning everything was adjusted correctly).

Now turning the motor over by standing on the prop.. well... My thought was to turn the motor over with the starter motor using a wire to bypass the safety switch. Or jumping the solenoid wiring in the engine compartment to get it to roll over.
Depending on how much force you needed to get the lever back far enough to engage the safety switch, could do some damage to the cable and linkage.
The reason the cone was wedged into the gear is because that is what happens when you put the drive in gear. The cone is forced into the gear and sticks there. That is how it holds the mega horsepower going thru the drive. When you shift it into neutral, the bump rings pop it out of gear..
If you could have rolled the motor over without putting pressure on the shifter, until it was turning, you would find it would have popped right out of gear and not cause any streching or damage..
Hopefully that has not happened. And things will be ok.
But it is a good idea to check the linkage adjustments to make sure..
Hope that helps..
Dick

Been great help... I will put a linkage measured on it before this weekend to make sure all is well. I also ordered the bravo 1 manual for future issues. Hopefully I will be tearing up the waters this weekend :)

Have fun!! :) :)

KYBOY,on your way to the water,FILL THEM GAS TANKS,lol,then enjoy the boatride.:lolhit:

Yeh.... being a fuel distributor and running out of gas....you can only imagine thos phone calls and jokes that have followed

Drive upper needs to come apart the clutch is stuck in forward. Seen this happen many times. Give me a call at
954 237 0332. Ask for John

John, he already has this fixed... I think he is good to go.

You may have a simple cable issue. With the hatch open, have someone work the port shift lever and see if the cable from the helm to the shift bracket is indeed moving the cable from the shift bracket to the drive. If something appears amiss there see if you can shift the drive out of gear by hand manually at the shift bracket.

pull the drive