Ever since I have put the boat in the water I am having problems with the forward gear. I'm now at 11 hours. At first my throttle lever was very stiff. I fixed it by turning the adjustment screw for the disk plate behind the throttle plastic cover. (Thanks to the archive in this forum.)

Now that is fixed it is even more apparent that I have something else to adjust. When going in forward, the gear doesn't always engage. I have to be careful since the engine is revving freely and I don't want the drive to engage at high RPM. By playing back to neutral and forth with the throttle it engages after a while. Sometimes it takes 2 to 3 tries.

I saw the cable going on top of the engine undeneath the plastic cover. But that seemed only for the engine not the drive. Where should I be looking at? Should I be lubricating somewhere on a new boat?

It best done by a dealer and its usually done at the shifer base.

I wouldn't mind trying to adjust it myself first. Dealer is 3 hours away and swamped with work.

Any more info on this shifter base?

I did not go to Volvo repair school, so I would go to a dealer, but if you do it and it works, post some photos. Sorry I could not help more.

One has a shifter base if its a mounted on a flat surface (top mounted) shifter at the helm station.

You may have a side mounted shifter.

Phatboy,

11 hours? You're under warranty. Get the dealer to look at it or another VP certified shop.

Yes but that would be some precious down time on our short summer. For now I'm asking for help on how to adjust it myself. If that fells then I will bring it out of the water to bring it to a dealer.

Please no discrimination because I'm under warranty. I want to get help from you guys too.

This is good. I'll look at a shifter base at the helm. Maybe it just needs some silicone grease.

The stiffness could be lube, but I doubt it. The sloopy neutral is an adjustment most of the time.

Spend the money on the Volvo shop manual for your particular engine/drive. It will have a step by step of this adjustment as well as hundreds of other maintenance items.

I have tried the other manuals such as Seloc and Clymer and they work but the pics and drawings are better in the factory manuals. If you are three hours from a shop then you need a manual.

In the meantime run a search on shift cable adjustment here. I bet there is a thread in the archive.

X2. The manual will help, but sometimes the writing is not the best. It does sound like your cables are out of adjutment. For good measure, have you checked all fluids, etc.

There is adjustment possible at the outdrive end, certainly on the earlier DPS drives . The shift cable attaches to the actuator via a bronze cube nut/ split pin. This is all underneath the plastic cover, which is held on by 3 bolts. The position of that cube nut can be adjusted on the cable by screwing it one way or the other, after the split pin/ washer has been removed. Sometimes there is a locknut on the shift cable thread as well that needs to be slackened off before the cube nut can be turned.. Basically, in neutral that cube nut needs to be lying central in the slot in which it engages.

I also had to adjust mine at the shift lever slightly, as there was not quite enough adjustmet available at the outdrive end.

You should also check that the cable doesn't have unduly tight radii.

Graham

If I recall correctly you have two cables, one throttle and one gear select. I think Graham has it pretty detailed out. Does the boat go into reverse real quickly? If so that cable is definitely out of adj.

Here is a schematic of a drive similar to yours. The inset at the top should resemble what you are looking for.

Hope this helps.

Select "Marine Drive and Transmissions" then "By Drive" then "DP E Intermediate Housing.pdf"

I checked the fluids before starting it the first time. All good.

Reverse has no problem engaging. But gets very stiff after I push it a little.

I'll look at the outdrive end first as it seems simple from the diagram. Then move up to the throttle shifter. Then get a shop manual if I can't figure it out.

Thank you for all you suggestions and help.

I think it's probably a DPS, rather than the DPE drive you have.


http://www.marinepartsexpress.com/VP_Schematics/MARINE%20DRIVE%20&%20TRANSMISSION/SX-M_DP-SM/TRANSMISSIONS/Shift%20Mechanism.pdf

Graham

I'd get the shop manual and read thru the procedure first. Then if it makes sense to me I might try the adjustment but you have to be careful, misadjustments of shift cables can cause damage to the drive's shifting components. This was a common problem on the OMC Cobra drives, if not properly adjusted they would jump out of gear and that would ruin the dog clutch gears in the lower unit. When they are properly adjusted they shift great. I have the manual, read it through, but still had the pro do mine. 20 years old and it shifts great.