Well it's a 1996 shifting cables so imagine it could be that. I lubed it at rear and front of cable and it helped but soon back to hard shifting. Forward is ok just really a struggle to shift in reverse. If I need new cables best cable Best Buy? Oh 502mpi. Thank you for any suggestions.

Probably the lower shift cable or the shift assembly/detent in the drive.

Since you have 20 year old control cables I would replace those first. If that does not fix it then change the intermediate shift cable.

And make sure you have them adjusted correctly.

Yes very good point

Just unhook the control cable at the engine side then go up, shift fwd and rev at the control box - if it shifts smoothly then thats not your problem area. If it does shift hard then its either the control cable or in the control box. You rule out the areas first to find your problem area. This prevents part changing and expenses that do not solve your problems so you can move on to find it..

Yay perfect thank u! Great advise

Agreed on problem isolation. Mine was the control/shifter itself. Bearings to provide a "click"/set position were frozen. Grease and go!

Grease and sounds good to me. Excited to check it out. In Mexico right now been six weeks so ready to work on her. Repainted my red Basals for gauges before i left. They turned out incredible looks like a perfect anodizing !!!