I posted a few threads earlier regarding shifting problems I am having with my '87 240 Baja Sport. Boat has a 460 OMC King Cobra and I am having problems shifting. I made adjustments on the cable and I could get it to go into forward and neutral, or neutral and reverse. (2 out of 3! no matter what way I go). There's no play in the cable that runs from the engine to the shifter, but there is some play in the cable that runs from the engine out through the gimbel housing. I have the boat out of the water, outdrive off. The shift rod that runs down into the bottom part of the drive seems to be working just fine (which is a relief) and the only play I can find is in this one bushing where this shift lever seems to go through. I am going to replace that. Any other suggestions?

will it just not go into gear or does it go into gear and its not there. my problem was i kept losing forward. it would go in gear and the prop would spin but it didnt feel like it would be going in gear. and if you gave any throttle there was nothin. so i ended up having the upper half rebuilt.

Did you check the small shifting lever in the gimbel house/yoke assembly? Possibly it's the small bushing in the cast yoke that transfers the cable motion to the upper gear housing assembly at this pivot point.

Dad

Check the bell crank assy for any play, then replace the transom shift cable. I don't care if the cable looks good to you, mine looked good too, but when I replaced it, and adjusted it correctly, the problem went away. The cable repair kit comes with new mechanical parts that go up on the engine. They had a problem with that shift setup, so they made an upgrade kit to fix it. Keep using it that way, and you'll wipe your drive out. I've replaced a bunch of these.

You need the special tools to set the adjustment on the OMC shift cable.

I've played with them quite a bit and you will never get it right without the special cable adjustment tools.