durbin

one of the outdrives seem to be really hard to get into gear , forward or reverse, with engine running or shut down. thought it may be the control cable coming from the shifter, but i disconnected it from the shifting plate and it seemed to work fine. took the rear plate off the drive and took the pin out of the shift assembly, it seemed to be able to go into gear fine with no problem. then i took the shifting cable off at the transom plate and raised it up, took the end off the cable put a plastic bag on it with a wire tie and filled the bag with super lube thinking that gravity would allow the fluid to run through the cable, left it overnight. put it all back together the next day but still no difference. seems if i work it back and fourth several times it gets looser but if it sits a minute it is stiff again, any ideas, need help, really don't want to pull drive and put on new cable and don't even know if i'm looking in the right place. HELP!!!!

CMS Racing

is the dentent button in the back cap stuck and you should not shift the drive with the engine off

Canada Jeff

I had the same problem, after changing two cables, still was hard. Turned out to be the Imco back cap didn't have the same recess for the detend spring as the original back cap! The Imco cap, for the Hydraulic steering, was just a bit shalower. I remover the cap, and cut the spring down. Problem solved!

Payton

When I had that trouble it was the cable going to the drive.

bsc

Just blew my bravoI, the Clutch cone jammed into gear by its self, mine also was very hard to shift, not sure if this was why it was so stiff going in and out of gear, will find out soon when I get new upper gears and clutch cone assembly. \
Bryan

rappinleroy

I had very hard shifting in both fwd & rev once. Turned out two teeth on the fwd gear broke off and got pretty much ground up. Most of the debris was in the upper cap but there was a fair amount in the rear cap / shifter area also. I'm not sure where the debis was that caused the hard shifting but I think it was probably in the spiral clutch spline. It still drove but sounded like the gimbal bearing was noisy (had to have exhaust quiet to hear) which most likely was debris in the input gear bearings? Anyway, new stack/bearings and smooth shifting/quiet now. This was on a 2002 0M116xxx drive.

RJ1340

Be glad it shifts at all

Cignificant

Same here. My inner cable has a spiral-metal look to it, and any time you'd shift the "spirals" would compress and bind the cable inside the outer casing.