No reverse(forward) in bravo drive
 

Last weekend the bracket for the upper shift cable broke and my port drive was stuck in forward. finished out the day by shutting off the port engine when I needed neutral. Ordered a new bracket and installed it and adjusted cable. Still stuck in forward. Pulled the back cover and found the 1/4-28 socket head bolt had fallen out. Bolt was damaged, both threads and head had deep marks like it was jammed up somehow. I replaced the bolt and again adjusted shifter with alignment tool. I did take off the belt and ran engine for a minute and it seemed to shift into and out of all positions fine. Took the boat out this weekend and it worked great in forward and neutral, but found it did not actually engage in reverse. Went out to a safe spot in the lake and attempted to get it in reverse by removing the upper cable from the bracket and forcing the lower shift cable all the way back till it bottomed. Still no reverse. Forward and neutral worked great. Loaded boat and got it home to the barn. What could cause this? Can the clutch work in just one direction? This is the port drive so it would be forward that is out on a normal rotation drive, if that makes any difference. When I had the top and back cover off last weekend everything looked fine and there was absolutely no metal on the drain plug and the oil looked like new. Hopefully the drive experts on here know of this issue and it can be fixed easily...
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Is the shifter in neutral? if so, something in the shift cable/ linkage appears out of order,
the bolt head in the shift lever should be facing straight back, basically aligned with the the
”l” between the 9&4 on the back of the case

Thanks,
I think when I took this picture the drive was in forward, and the bolt was out. when I installed the new bolt, I was able to actually shift the drive into neutral. Then performed the alignment with plastic tool, per the instruction. I had positive shifting in all 3 positions at the helm. I did not actually check to see if the prop was spinning in both directions, and did not notice it was in fact not going into reverse until I was maneuvering in to tie up to another boat. I can drain the fluid, pull the cover and see if the bolt is aligned with the line on the case. To be clear, the rusty bolt, recessed in the arm, in the above photo?

Yes, the rusty bolt in the bottom, that recess in the lever is where the detent ball in the back cover rides when it’s in neutral.

when the lever is retracted by the cable, it’s rotating the shift fork cam to push the cone into the top gear, which will turn the propshaft ccw when engine is

when the lever is extended by the cable, it rotates the shift fork cam to push the cone into
the bottom gear, which will turn the propshaft clockwise

Oh, and use loctite on the screws

The bolt is lined up in neutral( and was thickly coated in blue locktite). It rotates to the left of the line when helm is in forward, but since I cant be in two places at once, I cant watch the round thing above to see if its actually moving down.

How hard was it to get the cone out? Special tools required? I have pullers at work, but nothing that will fit down into that case around that gear. I ordered a #28 manual (on cdr/pdf) but it wont be here till after the weekend. I have never been into a drive before, I was hoping it was something common and simple. The boat is functional as it is now and I can use it for labor day weekend, and any other remaining weekends of the season. Removing the drive and trying to obtain uncommon parts, will likely end my summer.
Hopefully by next season I will have a much better understanding of the bravo drives.

Here’s something easy to try.

remove the bolt out of the lever and the shift cam, you can use that same bolt and thread it into
the shift shaft at the top and pull out the shift shaft and shift fork, put the top cap back on.

You can look over the cam and check it for wear too.

you should be able to see the shift cone groove(where the fork rides) you should be able to pry it
either up down, once you start moving it, the garter springs inside will snap it either up or down.


when it is in the top gear, rotate the propshaft CCW, it should spin, try to rotate it
clockwise, it should lock up with very little amount of rotation and not turn

move the cone to the bottom gear, the propshaft should spin when turning clockwise and lock up
when turning CCW.

If it locks up one way and rotates the opposite way, the clutch is doing
what it’s suppose to do…..it would point back to a cable/ adjustment
or a shift fork issue.

when you put the shift fork back in, the nuts face down.

To get at the cone, you have to
have the drive off, the input shaft/pinion gear out of the case, the shift fork out, then then you can remove the driven gear cluster, after its out,
stand it up on the splined end of the clutch shaft, push down on the top gear hard enough to compress the garter springs, the gear should move down, then you can tap the collar on the clutch shaft down and remove the 2 keepers, then the collar will come off, the upper gear, then the top garter spring and then the shift cone.

I may skip the 2nd part(cone) till after the holiday, but I will pull the shift out and do the check. Thanks for the help, I will report back with findings.

Could not see the garter springs, but it did positively go into the upper and lower positions. it spun freely in the opposite direction that it locked in, both positions. It would not "rest" between the 2 positions, unless pryed slightly to the middle(neutral) position. I am guessing that is what the detent in the back cover is for? I replaced the shaft and lined up everything and snugged it all back together. I left the back cover off, I removed the belt and started the engine, shifted into forward, killed the engine and climbed out. it was in forward, spinning freely ccw and locked clockwise. repeated for reverse and it was as it should be. R&R bolts in shaft with red Locktite this time. Reinstalled the back cover, filled with fluid, reinstalled prop, stopped short of reinstalling steering. Closed engine hatch as I now had a prop to watch, started engine shifted into forward, slid down hatch to view the prop NOT spinning, quickly shifted into reverse and again viewed the prop not spinning. shut down engine. Adjusted shift cable to max pull in forward. Forced shifter into forward, as engine had been run enough without water, climbed out and the prop spun ccw and locked cw. I am assuming it will work in forward only for the labor day week end. Cracked open a cold beer and am sitting here thinking about life decisions.

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Well, throw the donkey ears on me eeee haaa. So the bolt backed out and locked drive cam in forward, as I attempted to shift to rev. it broke the plastic upper cable bracket and split the lower shift cable casing, forcing the inner cable out the side. Since forward is "pull" it would suck the inner cable back in the casing and pull on the shift arm allowing for forward and enough movement to push into neutral, but not all the way into reverse. Since the original issue was the bolt , I was searching in that area for the problem. When the rear cover was off, there was less pressure on the shift arm(no detent), so it went into rev. I pulled the drive this morning to inspect the little claw thing , and noticed the cable did not feel right. pulled the access panel on the extension box and followed the cable up through the transom. I found this,
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Thanks for all the help, I really appreciate it.

After just reading the prior post, I’m thinking it’s got to be a cable issue,
glad you found it…. having boxes make it a bit easier routing the cable to the drive rather than having to lay on top of the engine and try to get it through.