On Apr 7, 1:10 pm, wrote:
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

Hi Bomber

I work with newer versions of your boat every day and from what you
are saying I dont think it is a ESA module problem, for me it sounds
more of a mechanical problem with the cables or the remote control. I
find that in practice if a engine is even reving at 2000 revs with no
stifeling you can still change the gear, but obviously reverse is
harder to get at any revs. There could be something that gets stuck
ocasionally in the remote control, there could be a frayed cable
getting cought at a bend, there could be a lot of wear at the leg end
and the cable end could be riding off the selector and getting stuck
in the housing.
Anyway one way or another you will have to get it fixed soon or you
will get stranded out at sea very soon.

Best of luck
Oysterhaven boats
Ireland