Cable slipped out of bracket

Ok, back to the reverse issue. Once home and after doing what I could with the wheel deal, I started trouble shooting to see why I didn't have reverse. It didn't take long to see that the shift cable had came out of the bracket just inside the cowling. There is a little clip on that bracket that clamps down over the cable sheath. Now, I'm pretty sure I put that clip over the cable when I installed the new cables. But that bracket and clip is just inside the cowling. With all the other cables and hoses that come thru the rubber bushing where it all enters the cowling, it's hard to get that cable out of the bracket. So the fact it came out on it's own puzzled me a bit. In any case, I closed the clip, and also zip tied the cable into that bracket so it couldn't come out again.
All seemed to work well again on the trailer running the motor with the muffs and shifting in and out of reverse. Out to Lake Kegonsa then a few days later, to try it all out on the water again. At first, everything seemed to work like it should. No problem going into reverse. Stopped to anchor for a while, and then pulled anchor to head back. Damn, if I didn't have problems shifting into reverse again. Sometimes it would grind gears, and sometimes it would engage just fine. Loaded back up and headed home. Again, I looked everything over to try and figure out what was going on. I checked the linkage at the lower shift rod bracket again, the one under the power head, to see if it may have possibly come loose again. I grabbed the shift linkage and had a lot of vertical free play. 1/4 to 1/2". Ok, this has to be my problem. Off to the internet to search out the linkage slop. The results of that search pretty much indicated all that free play there at the linkage bracket would cause the grinding of gears or lack of reverse. And to get to that bracket to replace it or any of its parts, would require removing the power head. Not something I wanted to do.Read more