Boat will not reverse

[fishn]

I have a 150 yamaha that will not reverse. It will go into gear forward but not backwards. I turned off the motor and had it in forward gear and the prop will not spin. Did the same thing in reverse and the prop spins. Any idea what happened and how much will it cost to fix.

[PerchJerker]

Possibly a bent shift shaft inside the motor, I've seen it happen on motors that were shifted into reverse when the motor wasn't runnning. No idea on the cost, if that's really what it is. Hope you're up and running again soon.

[Surface Tension]

Anything seem odd with the shift lever?

Not getting full travel, binding, or sloppy?

What you can do is verify that the problem is not in the shifter, cable, and linkage. Pull the cover off and inspect the cable linkage and mounts. What your looking for is a cable out of its mount. Is there any chance someone was adjusting your shift or throttle cables back there?

Have an assistant shift into reverse as you note the direction of travel on the cable and the linkage its connects to. Have a look around to get an understanding of the travel when shifted. Still no go I'd return to neutral, disconnect the cable and manually shift at the point you've discovered. Shift into forward, neutral, and reverse, to see via turning the prop.

If your able to get it into reverse manually then you found out its somewhere in the cable, linkage, shift. Could just be out of adjustment.

[BoxMN]

My guess, a broken shift cable. If it is that, some good advice would be to replace the throttle cable when you do the shift cable, as they will go out at about the same time... been there, done that

Relatively easy to do depending upon how "friendly" the boat is.

Good luck.

[marine_man]

If it goes into neutral and forward I doubt it's the shift cable. You've got both the push and the pull action in the cable, so if it were broken it wouldn't get pulled.

marine_man

[broken_line]

could be a broken shift cable.. on my dads tooner it would only shift into forward then wouldnt come out.. the cable can still push if broken but not pull..

[Surface Tension]

If you saw a guy at the Sturgeon Excursion sitting in the splash well with motor cover off that was me. Not my boat though.

Broken shift cable, the cable pushes and pulls. Once you extend the travel of the shift that is were it'll stay, in this case(Johnson/Evinrude)reverse. I manually shifted it into forward and left it there for the weekend.

[marine_man]

could be a broken shift cable.. on my dads tooner it would only shift into forward then wouldnt come out.. the cable can still push if broken but not pull..

Agreed... but in this case, fishn said it would go from neutral to forward and back, but that's it... no reverse.

marine_man