[karae225]

I was parking my boat yesterday and went to shift in reverse to swing the tail around and she shot forward and I hit my buddys houseboat!! What gives? I have no reverse at all. If I give it enough power it goes forward....A little help, please and thank you.

[mikeyt]

Kind of reminds me of the pranks played in school where someone changes the position of the keys on the computer keyboard....

hmmm.. sounds like a shift linkage problem (broken part).

[karae225]

I checked the linkage and it seemed to work/shift properly. I read something about a bolt on the shift cable that can be adjusted. Advice??

[mikeyt]

Have a look at this site. It's an excellent resource for 'How do I....' from Mercstuff.com

[indykoch]

I had the exact same thing happen! Hit the gas dock. Luckily, no injuries or damage to the boat. But I did take a chunk of wood and half a plank off the dock from the eyelet. Since this marina was the one that replaced my shift cable, I figured it was there fault for not tightening the screw properly.

It's most likley where the shift cable meets the actuator. There's a tiny bolt that basically digs into the metal end of the shift cable and holds it to the actuator. It doesn't really show anything wrong until you take it apart. Let us know what you find out, and good luck! That tiny bolt is near impossible to find if it fell all the way out!