when to adjust reversing gear?

[Flyingmike]

I had the hardest time reversing today and wondering if my reversing gear is slipping. At idle I put it in reverse and all feels and sounds normal. But the boat hardly moves at idle. The shaft was spinning that's for sure, so I throttle up, and the normal reversing gear noise goes away as the RPMS pick up, and I don't move any faster than when I was at idle. I throttle down and notice the normal reverse noise comes back as I approach idle and I feel as if I am moving better at idle than I am at 3,000 rpms the shaft was spinning in reverse the whole time but I wasn't able to tell if it would spin faster as I throttled up. Btw getting to 3,000 rpms didn't seem to take very much throttle, normally at WOT I can barely make 3,000 rpms in forward but have never tried wot in reverse to see what the max rpms where. After a very stressful time backing out the slip I engage forward and all seems and works fine. Is it time to adjust the reversing gear? Also I just changed the oil with rotela 15w-40, could a fresh oil change cause some slippage?

[JOHN COOKSON]

Before you dig into the transmission disconnect the linkage at the transmission and shift by hand with the trany lever and see if anything changes. Maybe the linkage became maladjusted somehow.

TRUE GRIT

Edit: Did you push the boat backwards so it was going backwards when you engaged reverse gear? Also after one shifts into reverse at idle it is a good idea to not to apply power for a couple of seconds so reverse has a chance to lock in before you hit it with throttle.

Edit #2. How clean is the prop?

[Flyingmike]

I was at idle for at least a min before advancing the throttle, shifting felt completly normal. I normally use the engine to back out, no pushing. It prob took me about 10 min to back all the way out of the slip and out into the marina (about 200 feet.) Just felt like reverse was completely useless today.

[Dave Neptune]

Flyingmike, it is NECESSARY to HOLD pressure on the reversing band when engaging reverse with any power at all as the reversing gear just slips due to lack of pressure on the reversing band.

As John said be sure the linkage is OK before tearing into things.

Dave Neptune

[Al Schober]

You can try tightening up your reverse band by one flat on the nut, but no more than that - don't break your shifter inside the transmission. I suspect you have a problem with your shifting cable - it might be binding up or the attachment of the jacket may be loose at one end. For the cable to work properly, it needs 4 (yes FOUR) fixed points - each end of the core (obvious, as these do the work) and each end of the jacket. Check them all!

[alcodiesel]

Flying: I believe this reverse problem is not a major issue. The guys on this forum helped me go from no reverse at all to reverse-just-fine with a $4.00 part and adjusting the reverse adjusting nut. (And the MMI manual)
For the month I didn't have reverse we just pushed the boat out of the slip.

[Flyingmike]

I adjusted the linkage all the way out, it seamed to help a little bit, but I am def hitting the shifter stop. I bought a gasket for the gear cover and will try adjusting the nut in the reversing gear on Thursday.

[Flyingmike]

Tightened the reversing nut two flats of the nut and I have reverse again. I probably could have gone 3 flats as I am pretty much at my most rearward travel on my shifting lever but didn't want to over tighten it so I let it be. I didn't adjust forward at all being that it was working just fine but I noticed after the adjustment the shifter seemed a little harder to move to engage forward just required a little more force than what it use to, is this normal with the adjustment of the reversing band, I would expect the extra force had I adjusted the forward.