fishie1 said:
It was difficult to shift, hard to find neutral. No chatter just very stiff in movement. With engine off it shifted freely (I know I'm not supposed to do this). When running it was difficult to get revs down to idle, lowest was around 1300 and it took significant effort to find neutral. Made backing into slip interesting.
That is an odd symptom.
First test which control is stiff, shift or throttle. To do so, use the shift override feature of the control and see if the movement is stiff. If it is, the throttle cable has an issue. ( the shift may also be stiff though)
If with the override, the movement is not stiff, release the override and see if the control is now tight by moving from neutral to forward into gear ( motor is off). If its a lot tighter, the shift cable is the problem.
Now test neutral switch, by moving the control to neutral and trying to crank the motor. If it does crank, stop and now move the control out of the neutral position, Try again to crank the motor. It should not crank over. If you are pretty sure that the neutral switch at the helm is working properly, you can skip this test.
If those test are OK, pull the cowling and look at the two cable ends at the motor. Have someone move the control both with the shift override engaged and not engaged and confirm that when the control lever is moved, the corresponding lever on the motor moves. It it common for the connection that holds the stationary piece of the control cable to be broken/loose/unattached which results in the cable sheath moving instead of the cable core. This condition could explain why finding neutral is difficult.
Sometimes the cable core frays and gets 'elastic'. In addition to stiffness and binding, it may stretch when pulled and compress when pushed. To test, you have to compare the movement at the helm with the movement at the motor remembering that the shift cable only moves during the firt half or so of the control lever movement. If there is a 'break,at some point during the movement of the control, the cable end at the motor won't move or will move less than normal for the corresponding control lever movement.
let us know what you find