Hey everyone, I'm a new owner of a 2000 Challenger Twin Rotax! I took it out for the first ride and the water was really choppy. Toward the end, the shifter got stuck in drive. I tried shifting back to neutral many times, but the shifter would only move about 1 inch before locking (the throttles were both all way back). The only way I could fix the problem was to drive around a bit more and hit some more hard waves, then the shifter allowed me to go back to neutral and "reverse."
I plan to add marine grease to the metal arm that comes out of the back so it can shift smoother (per a video I found online) and also lube the shift cable to see if those help with the sticking gear issue, but it felt as though something was physically preventing/locking the shifter after about an inch of pull to go from drive to neutral. Maybe a bump jostled something into locking the shifter internally and then jostled it back out once I hit more choppy water or maybe it's just that they needed to be lubed?
The second issue is that I noticed reverse never really did much of anything the whole time. Backing up from the trailer was very painful and slow even though the shifter was fully in reverse. What I noticed after the day was over is that the shift plate in the back of the jets (sorry for the bad terminology) would only move maybe 5-10* from reverse to neutral, but then moves all the way vertical to drive. I don't think this is normal.
Here are some pictures showing the position of the jets at each shift from 2 different angles.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
I plan to add marine grease to the metal arm that comes out of the back so it can shift smoother (per a video I found online) and also lube the shift cable to see if those help with the sticking gear issue, but it felt as though something was physically preventing/locking the shifter after about an inch of pull to go from drive to neutral. Maybe a bump jostled something into locking the shifter internally and then jostled it back out once I hit more choppy water or maybe it's just that they needed to be lubed?
The second issue is that I noticed reverse never really did much of anything the whole time. Backing up from the trailer was very painful and slow even though the shifter was fully in reverse. What I noticed after the day was over is that the shift plate in the back of the jets (sorry for the bad terminology) would only move maybe 5-10* from reverse to neutral, but then moves all the way vertical to drive. I don't think this is normal.
Here are some pictures showing the position of the jets at each shift from 2 different angles.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
