Shifter Repair and ski eye removal

JoeinNY wrote: What are you really asking about the shifter? you should be able to pull out of drive or reverse without pulling the little black knob thats normal operation.

Nice catch, Joe. Youre right- the lockout is only supposed to keep the throttle from being knocked into gear (from neutral) accidentally. If its not doing that, remove the shifter from the boat and take a look at how it works- its painfully simple.

I doubt the shifter is original, by the way. I believe '90 was the first year to have that feature. I can say for sure that they didnt come stock in '88.

You can get a pop up rear pylon from Marine Hardware but your gas tank would be in the way. I would leave it too. I used to use mine to tie up all the time.

The shifter sounds like it needs a new arm. I just had to replace mine in my 98 because it would not lock out in nuetral. New are fixed it perfectly.

Brad

One thing to keep in mind if you are going to remove the rear eye is that you won't have a fixed point in the rear for tying up should you ever need too. I don't normally use mine either but I have had to use it when caught in a thunderstorm and had to make a run for the bridge. I had to use it as a tie-off point along with the front one cause the storm was blowing so hard it was having its way with the boat and using it was the only way for us to stay under the middle of the bridge and not get soaked.

Q1: Our shifter on our 88 2001 is having problems staying in neutral. Hell it doesn't even do that. When you go to pull the shifter out of drive or reverse you can do it without pulling on the little black knob. Does anyone know if this can be sent off to have it fixed or if we could fix it ourself?

Q2: Is it possible to remove the rear lift eye and replace it maybe with a pop up one? We don't use it at all and probably never will. OR does anyone know where a cover could be purchased that would go over the whole. I'd love to make this a place where a custom binding lube thing could come out!

Finally we are getting our stringer rot repaired! Dad finally decided he couldn't do it so we took it to a local shop and they quoted us for the repair to cost less than $2000! That is after all of the old floor and foam has been ripped out. Now I will for sure have a boat to ride behind this summer!