Yes, the cone has 2 contact surfaces, one to mate with the top gear cup, the other to mate with the bottom gear cup...the shift fork moves the cone to either the top or bottom gear.

Update.

When I winterized it last fall the drive oil was very clean, no metal shavings no signs of abnormal wear. A few weeks ago I pulled the drive off and everything looked really good. Looked at the thingy (technical term) that catches and holds the shift cable and it looked really good. I was kinda hoping to see this buggered up so I could say ah that just needs replaced, but no such luck. I went ahead and bought a new shift cable and I replaced that. The existing cable didn't look bad, no kinks or odd wear or anything. Did a little adjusting and dropped the boat in the water. My props are currently being trued and polished up so I had to borrow a single crappy prop that didn't even turn the right way. LOL. Just left the boat on the trailer in the water and tried shifting the drive and it was off a bit still. Adjusted it again and boom, it seemed to be shifting perfectly. Mind you this was at the dock on the trailer. I really want to say that the issue has been fixed. I'll know for sure once I get my props back and I can actually take it out on the water. I'm guessing the shift cable had just stretched.

Just a few quick thoughts. One very fast thing you can do that will resolve all cable adjustment issues, is disconnect the black shift cable that goes to the drive from the shift block and while the engine is running manually push and pull the cable in and out of gear to ensure maximum throw. At this point you have taken lack of throw out of the equation. This is seriously probably less than 5% the cause and that is being generous. On the bravo it is 95% clutch. The reason it is able to shift to reverse and not in to drive is because of a few issues. First the clutch has two separate surfaces, one for the reverse gear and one for the drive gear. The reverse gear sees very little abuse so it almost never has a wear issue. The drive side is very different. The way the clutch works is when you throw it into gear it's like a nut and bolt and it's all driven from the load of the engine. The more torque you apply the tighter the nut and bolt effect tighten together to keep from slipping. When you are under severe load and every time you lift off the throttle for wave etc. the clutch actually falls out of the gear slightly because the load is completely removed then when you apply the power again the clutch effectively slams itself back into the gear cup. The shape of the clutch and cup have angles on them that when power is applied it acts as a wedge. Eventually when to hammer enough time into this wedge you actually wear the clutch and you do something else that people don't realize which is you actually expand the cups inner diameter slightly which is called hooping. So what causes the shift delay? When you shift the drive into gear and move the clutch towards the cup the friction between the two surfaces begin and when enough friction is applied then the nut and bolt effect can take place and tighten enough to transfer the load to the propeller. When you have worn the clutch excessively or hooped the cup enough the friction can't take place and begin the tightening process. Their is also one other problem that is involved which is when you wear the outer surface on the clutch which contains lots of little lines and grooves which flatten over time and these grooves are used to displace the oil and keep it from effectively hydraulicing and not being able to displace the oil. Ok so what is the fix. I'll give you best case worst case and if you have time trying to do it on the cheap. First on the cheap try to remove the drive and simply flip the clutch over and the better side might work in the worn cup and the worn side could possibly work in the better cup. Next is replace it with a new clutch. Worst case is you need a gear and clutch. We also replace the garter springs with a much stronger version which helps keep the clutch into position. I know this has been a mystery for people for a long time so I hope I have been of some help. We dealt with a lot with all of these issues on other drives at my company X Power Drive.
If I can ever be of any assistance feel free to call any time.

Bill Auberlen
X Power Drive
805-320-5631

Bill,

Thanks for the info. Once I get my props back I'm going to take it out for a proper test. If issues arise I'm just going to replace the clutch cone altogether. As of right now it is shifting properly with a new shift cable.

This issue has so many people saying so many different things. Replacing shift cable was a fairly inexpensive fix so I figured worth a try before tearing the drive apart. If it comes to that I may give you a call. As always I'll keep you guys posted.

had this problem on B1. Mech took upper apart and found no issues. removed the amsoil synthetic and put standard HP merc gear lube in. No more problems

As far as I know the previous owner had Merc in it. I drained and put Merc back in so I know that's good to go.

Very Informative !!! Thanks for taking the time to thoroughly explain the entire shifting process. I for one, was unaware that during a throttle down at speed caused the clutch to unload. This explains why so many locals tell me -" I just picked the throttle back up and BOOM". Reengaging the clutch cone at near peak torque has got to be a fairly violent engagement.

I had same thing. I switched from Mercury Hi Performance Gear Lube to Amsoil Marine Gear Lube - seemed to be no problems. Then I swtiched from Amsoil Marine Gear Lube to Amsoil Severe Gear Lube and that 's when my delay started. I swtiched back to Mercury Hi Performance Gear Lube and the effects of my delay has been resolved. The Amsoil Severe Gear was/is evidently "more slick" than the Merc stuff which caused a worn cone clutch to act more worn than it really is. I do expect a rebuild in the near future....

And it took about a full (25 hours) lube change to get the shifting back to where it was prior to changing brands.

Ok so long time no reply here but wanted to update everyone now that I've worked on the drive and somewhat confirmed the fix. So everyone that pointed to the cone clutch were the winners. ;)

Replacing the shift cable seemed to have improved/fixed the delay for awhile but then it came back worse than before. Keeping fresh Merc HP gear lube (I've always used this gear lube) in the drive seemed to help it a bit but the delay was still there. So over the winter I took the upper apart and sure enough the clutch was smooth as a baby bottom. The ridges were worn down completely. Further tear down and found the shaft in the lower was twisted. Further tear down of the lower found issues with the gears. So a full rebuild was in order. Got everything back together and have ran it for the past two weekends and all seems to be working well so far.

Is it odd that one drive would have a twisted shaft and not the other? Just figured if previous owner did something he shouldn't have both drives would be hit but checked the other drive over and all seems well with it.

Happy boating!