Newbie with a 28 zx

[Need for Speed 2]

Hi everyone, just got back into boating after a 10 year hiatus. My wife and I have purchased an 1998 28 zx boats very good condition except for a couple minor issues. One is the trim guage cable has broken on the left side drive and the other is a sticky shift cable on that same drive. We have 2 new cables came with boat, can I change these out myself easily and if so any tips on stern removal would be appreciated. Also where can I purchase new cables for the trim indicators, looks like the cables run from the rear all the way to the unit on the control panel. One more thing where can I purchase some wind deflector or windsheild add on . Guess we are getting old the wind blowing in our faces is not that appealing anymore. Thanks for any help guys.

[Dr. David Fleming]

The trim indicators came in two styles - standard Mercruiser and Merc Racing style.

MerCruiser style - this is a black plastic position indicator on the pivot of the gimble on the side of the stern-drive. This electrical switch works with the Trim limit switch on the opposite side of the stern-drive. An electrical signal from this position indicator sender is sent electrically to the dashboard of the boat which gives a dial type reading similar to the fuel gauge, volt meter, temp gauge.

Merc Racing style - These are mechanical cable indicators supplied through Livorsi Marine and sometimes sold under the name of Gaffrig or MerCruiser. This is a mechanical slot indicator system that can have one, two, three, or four slots. This allows the engine drive trim to be shown next to the trim tab indication. If you have a duel engine there will be one slot of the indicator for each drive and one each for the right and left trim tabs (usually Mercury K-Planes). If you have one engine and drive there will be three slots and a black line in the place of the fourth slot on the indicator card.

Merc Racing style indicators attach to the drive with two stainless steel clamps on the side of one of the trim ram cylinders. This is a stainless steel tube with plastic insert that pushes against a chrome wheel attached to the hydraulic drive ram mounting. A cable assembly comes out of this indicator tube runs through the hull and to the dashboard where it attaches to the frame of the Livorsi/Gaffrig indicator board. This cable has an inner wire which mounts to a plastic red button assembly that runs in the slot of the card. A similar set up is used to indicate the trim tab/ K plane setup.

All this indicator equipment can be serviced through Merc Racing/ Mercruiser although it can be difficult to navigate the Mercury parts system. Livorsi Marine can supply the cables, indicator parts and give fairly quick service. The Merc Racing drive indicator setup can be difficult to locate new in the parts system, hard part number to find, if you need the part number I can look it up for you.

About the only thing that can go wrong in the racing setup is corrosion fouling the mechanical cables. The MerCruiser system suffers from the black plastic senders going bad - there is another post on this website about this.

Hope this helps,