Hey guys, I have a friend that owns a 2013 Mercury PRO xs 115. He states that from day one it was always hard shift out of gear whether coming from forward or reverse. It was also hard to pull into reverse. He dropped the lower unit and the cables moved freely. It got so bad at one point that he actually broke the shifter/throttle handle. He recently installed a new SEI LU and while it is better than it was, he states it's still harder than he thinks it should be. The old unit had water in it. Again, there is no cable binding at all when the LU is not attached. Could the linkage cause this issue? Has anyone heard of this issue on this motor?

He actually tried replacing the cables as well, still no good.

Mine is hard shifting in cold weather. Has he checked the throttle detent? On the Ranger I had there were 2 adjustments on the control box. One was throttle friction and the other is detent. Detent adjusts the amount of effort to shift from neutral to forward or reverse. I need to adjust it on my current boat but not sure there is a detent adjustment on a console shifter.