I had a boat mechanic do some things on my boat the week before last. One of the things was to adjust the idle. I took it out last week with no problems. Today, all of the sudden, it got progressively harder and harder to get the boat from forward to neutral. Then, after a few hours, it took all of my strength to do it (which almost became dangerous to dock). When I could get into neutral finally, the idle was at 4000RPM. I took off the cowling to find that the idle screw has a nut that holds it in place once you adjust it which was very loose.
The weird thing is that with the boat turned off, the throttle was as smooth as always. Cranked, smooth in neutral. In gear (forward) smooth as silk, just when moving from forward to neutral and to reverse was very hard…borderline impossible towards the end of the day.
If the boat was idling too high, would that be what was preventing it from shifting? I would think if the cable had a problem, it would be tight in neutral and drive as well.
1997 Merc Mariner 150 carb (non EFI).
Thanks!!