Where’s backwards?

We have been having some problems finding reverse. Meaning that when putting the throttle back it wouldn’t always engage first time. After getting advise from a friend, I checked and changed the oil in the gearbox and inspected the throttle cables.

However, the problem didn’t go away.

Rummaging

So I did some more looking and found 3 of the 4 coupling bolts had come right off. The forth one was very loose. Wow! Glad I found that before it came right off. At the least, it would have meant having no drive power. Worse, we’ll I won’t dwell on that.

After a bit of rummaging, I found all the old bolts, nuts, and washers in the bilge, one of them completely mangled. Luckily I had spare 10mm bolts on board so I was able to fix, just needed to cut it to to right length.

Reading up on it, the recommendation is to check the alignment once a year. The value of preventative maintenance is making itself known. The trouble is you don’t know what you don’t know.

Lesson learnt!

Max