On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 14:55:45 GMT, "Ed Barchetta"
wrote:


"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
.. .

Neutral safety switch - somebody mentioned that and it certainly could
be the answer. And, as it happens, I can answer that.

It's not hard to get to - you have to remove the control from where it
is mounted to get behind it, then, and this may vary a little, remove
the rear/front cover - it may be a reed switch or contact switch -
again, I'm not sure of what kind of switch. It will be on or near a
cam located on the throttle arm pivot point. It could be inboard in
the throttle control body - the one I worked on was located there, but
I replaced the control with one that was on the outside.

I'm guessing here, but you may not be able to get a new switch. I
have worked on one of these for somebody in the family who had a merc
controller of the same vintage and while I could modify one to work,
it wasn't very good repair. You may have to consider a new control.
Hopefully not.

Out of curiosity, do you have to search for neutral when shifting in
and out of gear? If so, it may be more than just the switch in the
throttle.

Thanks for the info Tom. That should help me a great deal. To answer your
question, no, I don't have to look for neutral. It's got pretty solid F-N-R
positions. It's just gets all 'wound up' on the engine side after a moderate
to high rpm run and takes a little slow idling to get it 'unwound' or
loosened up enough to slide out of gear. Of course, when I hook the tach
wire back up at the coil side, the shifting is smooth but the engine
sputters.

I would suspect the neutral switch or wiring then.

It could, possibly, be the tach it'self. While I didn't have a
problem like yours, the FICHT on my Ranger had a shifting problem
related to the tach and/or tach control on the engine

Later,

Tom
S. Woodstock, CT
----------

"Fisherman are born honest, but they get
over it." - Ed Zern

Hey, you've got some places to start with the troubleshooting.

Good luck.