From everything you have said we can conclude the switch is working. You can
test it, if you want to, with an ohmmeter or you can gently push down on the
switch with the engine running. You will find that it doesn't take much
movement for the switch to stall the engine. The next thing you should do is
buy a manual for the engine and one for the sterndrive. You will find the
Mercruiser manuals a lot easier to read than the Clymer or Seloc versions.
You probably already know this, but I'll remind you anyway. If you run the
engine out of the water you need to feed water to the engine via a garden
hose and ear muffs.
Jim
"Scott" wrote in message
ups.com...
more messing with it...found the shift interrupter switch...seems that
when I go in/out of gear, it only moves maybe 1/16 of an inch; or

from here to there (four spaces on the keyboard). the button is
not pushing down far at all. from the worn area in the cradle where the
button is, seems to have never gone much further than that. It looks
like it wants to work because i can manually push it up and down with
my finger until completely pushed down ...no problem. Not sure how far
it is supposed to move up or down.

Thanks again all