Hard Shifting F225 (2004)

[Subsurface]

I just discovered this forum, and hope to contribute often in the future. Great site!

I thought I had this solved over the weekend when I replaced the throttle cables and checked out the Morse controls. Unfortunately, when I unhooked the original cables from the motor they shifted like butter. I replaced them anyhow. This has been a puzzle now for both myself and the mechanic; a certified Yamaha Tech.

Here is the deal:
Motor shifts hard into forward, and even harder into neutral from forward; to the point where you're forcing so hard to get into neutral that it feels like something is going to break. Reverse and back to neutral works pretty good.

With the cables separated from the motor, shifting works great. It has to be in the motor.

This motor was purchased over the summer. Shifting has always been tough, but seems to have gotten worse.

Any recommendations or advice are much-appreciated. Thank you!

[rodbolt17]

with the cable disconnected and the safty lanyard out.
have someone rotate the prop while you manually move the shift slide.
should be able to engage and disengage both F and R.

if so chase your cable problem.

to test the cable have someone try to hold the cable end while you move the shift lever at the helm.

if the manual shifting fails then remove the lower and shift the unit manually.
DO NOT grab the shift splines with pliers.

if the lower passes the shift test then you will need to replace the shift shaft in the midsection.
the cam will wear a groove and hang the detent ball.

replacing the shift shaft also requires powerhead removal.

[Subsurface]

Thank you for that, Rodbolt. I disconnected the cables today. I could shift it into manually reverse fine with the cables disconnected, but I could not get it to go into forward no matter how much pressure I put on it and spinning the prop fwd. With the engine on, it will pop into fwd with some force, but going back into neutral takes some finessing before it goes into reverse. I can't figure this thing out!

[rodbolt17]

re read.
I just told you how to test it.