Mercury 4-stroke problem (90 hp)

I have an ’01 Sylvan, console with a ’01 Merc 90 4-stoke on the back. The problem this year has been confusing, and irritating, to say the least. I can shift forward with no problem, and she works great from idle to full throttle and back with no problem. Going into reverse is another story. To even get it into gear, I have to snap her as fast as I can, otherwise a get alot of gear grinding. OK, so now I’m at idle in reverse. Sometimes it pops out for no reason. Another thing is giving more throttle. It’s next to impossible at times because the shift won’t budge… it takes a HUGE amount of effort to get past idle.
Heres what I’ve been told so far:
My usual mechanic’s initial thoughts were the control box. When he dug into it, he drained the oil, and found numerous shavings (obviously from the grinding). So then he thought it was a lower unit problem. Mercury wouldn’t allow him to do the warranty work, so I found another place that could do it. According to them, the completely disassembled the lower unit and could find nothing. They checked the cables and found them pinched… so it was fixed… right? Yeah… for a couple days! I was letting my brother use it up in Spicer, and the problem surfaced again. He took it to a mechanic up there who stated that the cables are to short, and we needed to “upgrade” them.

As you can tell, I’m pretty frustrated with this, and tired of nobody knowing what the problem is. I do have an extended warranty, so any motor work will be covered ( I hope).

Anybody else have these problems? Any advice????????

RippinPigs,

THe first thing I thought of when I started to read your post was that the cables were either pinched some where (ie..cable routing problem), but then you mentioned that you had that looked at. It sounds like these cables could be getting hung up on something on either end of the cable? Need more slack adjustment? Either way,like you said this should of been looked at when assembly of the motor was mounted to the boat. Why now? Not sure.

Where did you buy it from?

Steve-

I haven’t personally checked the cables… but I agree with you that something is causing this binding, pinching, whatever. Every once in a great while…. she works smooth as silk… with nothing done to change anything. How do you adjust the slack on the cables??

I bought the boat from Keiths Marine… it way over in Wisonsin.