I have a 40 hp Honda outboard. Serviced top to bottom 5 months ago, everything is fine. Haven�t had any issues.

Ran it today, no problems. Pull up to my spot fish for 20 mins on trolling motor, then go to move, big motor fires right up, but it won�t go in gear (forward or reverse). I limp back on trolling motor, get back home, put muffs on it to see what�s happening. I was hoping it was just a shear pin or something. But I didn�t hit anything.

Anyway, I take the prop off down to where I can see the main shaft. I can spin it freely clockwise and counterclockwise. I crank it up, put it in forward at 25% and 50% throttle,shaft does not spin. Same with reverse. When I crank it to 75% throttle in both forward or reverse, the shaft will spin some.

Ideas on what this could be? Translation: how bad $$ this can be?

The aggravating thing is the non-Honda places wouldn�t touch it when I needed service before, and the two closest Honda dealers are 35 and 65 mi away. The closer one kept my boat for 3 weeks and charged me thru the nose for a basic service last time. If anyone has a service recommendation, I�d rather drive it 3 hrs somewhere and get it done reasonably quickly and fairly priced than gamble like last time. Sorry but this is so depressing to have happen right at prime fishing time.

35 miles really isn't that far. I drive 50 miles to get quality service.

It's not the 35 miles... it's that they lied to me and overcharged me.

Like I said, I am happy to drive, I'd just like to be driving to someone with a positive recommendation...

Open up the cowling on the motor, get your wife to shift it from forward to reverse and at the motor linkage watch it, if it does not go from forward to revese got a bad cable, any shop can replace that, if it does not shift, 50 miles is a drop in the bucket to drive in Texas

This. I had my shift cable pop off a couple weeks ago.

The linkage on mine was fine so it was something else.

Well, I was able to fix it after getting some advice from a Honda outboards message board. Turns out that towards the foot of the motor these is a place where the upper gear shifter rod joins into the lower gear shifter rod. The are held together by two nuts. Well these fasteners had vibrated loose, detaching the upper rod from the lower rod. SO even though the lever was shifting into F-N-R, and the linkage was moving the upper rod into the position for F-N-R, it was not attached to the lower rod which actually shifts the gears in the lower unit to F-N-R!

Reattaching these in a very particular position joins them so that there is no grinding when going to F or R.

If you want more details (with pics), they are all here: http://www.marineengine.com/boat-forum/showthread.php?444788-BF40-won%92t-go-into-gear

Maybe this will help someone else down the line!

Nice of you to follow up