by gamayun » Sat Feb 17, 2018 12:29 pm
Ouch, Lew, sorry to hear. If you have the Edson pedestal, you can get the new parts from them. My shifter busted a few years back. It was the pin inside that broke, but it might be your cable that runs to the engine. I replaced both. Edson will talk you through on the parts you need and the pedestal diagrams are on the web, too. To get to the shifter, you have to remove the compass if you have one on the binacle. Make sure you mark the compass and the binacle so you know where to align them back together. Then you can get access to the shifter mechanism. There was also a bolt way down below that I had a devil of a time with and so it's not all that easy. Maybe someone has some tricks to this. I bought super long vice grips. I guess I could have removed the whole pedestal but that seemed like overkill at the time. It might make things easier though.
What kind of "dings" did you get? Can you post a picture? If they're slight, but have gone through the gelcoat and into the fiberglass (but not extensive), they can be ground out lightly and then filled with thickened epoxy. Once dry, sand smooth to match the adjacent gelcoat surface. You can then paint over, but it's always going to look like a repair job. Good luck with it all!!
Oh! Post script...look carefully and make sure you remove the compass housing -- NOT the screws to the compass itself, which will drain all the oil. Ask me how I know....
Kynntana, Freedom 38