99 Mercruiser 7.4 W/ Bravo III - Help with Shifting and Cables
 

I really hope you guys can help me out here. A close friend of mine passed away last year, and I have his old boat. Its a 99' Mariah. Its got the 7.4 MPI with a Mercruiser Bravo III drive. It always had small issues with the neutral safety swich (wasnt directly on neutral) ,but never with shifting.

The other day we were out and it shifted into foward, wouldnt shift out of forward till it was in reverse. Got it to the dock, pulled it out next day, All worked ok - F - N - R. I'd like to fix this issue for good. I checked the cable going to the drive to make sure its seated in the barrel correctly, but do not have the shift adjustment tool. I'll have one tomorrow if needed.

I was lookign at it this morning, I disconnected the lower shift cable from the linkage. N - R has a long throw. N-F has barely any throw. This doesnt seem right. I was going to start it and see if i can manually shift the drive cable to check for f -n-r. Please Any help would be very appreciated!!