I recently purchased a 1988 Bayliner Trophy Offshore 21'. I have
roughly 75 hours on a new motor installed by the previous owner. The
boat has never shifted what I would describe as very easily, but it
has been very functional. Recently, however, a new sporadic problem
has developed. Some days I can run the boat and shift as needed
through forward, reverse and neutral. On other occassions I can not
get to neutral and it takes a great amount of force to shift directly
from forward to reverse and back again. Yesterday this problem
happened again. After starting the engine at the dock in neutral and
backing out of the slip, I shifted easily past neutral into forward.
The problem began when I sought neutral after a few hundred yards at
idel speed. Thereafter, no amount of changes in speed nor shifting
back and forth at idle speed would completely solve the problem. The
best I could achieve was the ability to "jiggle" it (although still
with great force) into neutral when coming out of reverse about 30% of
the time.

The engine is runinng great, but I do not notice the temporary stop in
the engine when shifting. Might this be an ESA module problem?

From my reading it appears that OMC Cobra drives of this vintage had
original shift cable problems, or that I could certainly have one now.
My marina doesn't want to tackle it as they don't deal with Bayliner,
Mercruiser or OMC.

Any suggestions would be appreciated befoe I have to drive it down
island to another shop. The boat is located in Morehead City, NC.

Many thanks,
Old Bomber