Morse Single Lever control orientation

Tim O

Tim O

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I have a Morse single lever control on my Colvic Countess 33. The way it has been installed is such that the lever is horizontal and pointing aft when in neutral....

To go forward you push the lever down, reverse is up...

To me this is TOTALLY counter-intuitive resulting in me occasionally getting it the wrong way round. Today I had a total brain drain and while reversing out of my berth with the harbour wall approaching I went for a quick burst of forward to stop the boat except (you guessed it) i gave her a burst of reverse and rammed the harbour wall on the aft port corner. Luckily the thick teak rubbing strake took most of the blow (along with the prop on the tender outboard on the push-pit which is now minus one blade!)...equally luckily it wasn't someone else's boat! ( and i dont THINK anyone saw me;) )

I'm hoping this is one of those stupid mistakes you only make once BUT was wondering how difficult a job it would be to re-orientate the morse lever so that it is upright and so that forward is forward and back goes in reverse!!!
 
Assuming the normal kind of lever found on yachts, it can certainly be made to do this. The difficulty will depend largely on how good your access to the back of the mechanism is, and how tightly the handle has got stuck onto the shaft.

To have the handle pointing upwards in neutral, "just" unscrew the little grub-screw holding it in place, then pull it off, point it upwards, and push it back on again. I put the "just" in inverted commas because they do tend to seize in place after a while.

At that point you will still have the directions reversed. To fix that, you need to swap the gear cable from one side of the mechanism to the symmetrical position on the other side, and will almost certainly need to de-mount the whole thing from the bulkhead to do that. Have a good look at how it's currently assembled, and then just put it back together the same way on the opposite side so that the pivoting lever pushes it when it would currently pull, and vice versa.

Pete
 
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Agree with prv and this happened to me when the charter company had repaired the Morse lever and connected it up back to front, discovered when testing. Very easily fixed as well.
 
Thanks folks that sounds helpful. Access to back is pretty good actually via a removable panel in the aft cabin.

Looking more closely as per this photo I suspect the way it has been mounted is to avoid the lever interfering with the engine panel and potentially bashing against the ignition key and/or obscuring the engine stop button. I need to have a better look at and think about this in the light tomorrow!!

IMG_4975.jpg
 
I suspect that at some time the gear cable has been incorrectly fitted in which case it should be a simple matter to refit it in a mirror image of current set up
There are cases where the control is deliberately set up with neutral not in the normal vertical ie not to foul when at full throttle in ahead but otherwise moving round the splines is technically simple subject to corrosion.

If you Can you post a photo of the control as fitted it would make it easier to help if not is it top or side mounted?

Lakesailorded as we used to say here!

What position is that in relavent to full ahead?
 
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See photo (which just to confuse matters is also orientated wrongly....!

Even if I cant change it so that neutral is vertical because of interference with control panel/key then altering it to Forward-Up Reverse-Down would make more sense to me!
 
I guess it's down to accessibility for the cable run. My morse control is vertical, with the cables running down into the "engine compartment". The cables run along the bottom of the compartment until they lift up to the governor control and over the gearbox to attach to the gear lever. The cables are ridiculously long, really, but the gentle curves mean it's easy to operate. The downside is that any water getting into the locker where the control is fitted ends up in the bilge.
 
Tim O said:
See photo (which just to confuse matters is also orientated wrongly....!

Even if I cant change it so that neutral is vertical because of interference with control panel/key then altering it to Forward-Up Reverse-Down would make more sense to me!
Click to expand...
Asuming text on pan is horizontal?
one option is to remove key from panel end mount out of the way for the lever.
put a distance piece between lever base and mounting surface for the lever to gain more room between panel and lever
 
Topcat47 said:
I guess it's down to accessibility for the cable run. My morse control is vertical, with the cables running down into the "engine compartment". The cables run along the bottom of the compartment until they lift up to the governor control and over the gearbox to attach to the gear lever. The cables are ridiculously long, really, but the gentle curves mean it's easy to operate. The downside is that any water getting into the locker where the control is fitted ends up in the bilge.
Click to expand...

Wrong short cables with correct radius is actually more effecient as there is less drag round the bends!
 
Maybe move lever to point forward horizontally in neutral, rather than aft (assuming there's room), and swop cable to reverse direction of control.

This will make it more intuitive: you will then still push down for forward (as in put your foot down) and up for reverse (as in pull handbrake), but crucially now the rotation of the lever will be in the direction you want to travel.
 
LittleSister said:
Maybe move lever to point forward horizontally in neutral, rather than aft (assuming there's room), and swop cable to reverse direction of control.

This will make it more intuitive: you will then still push down for forward (as in put your foot down) and up for reverse (as in pull handbrake), but crucially now the rotation of the lever will be in the direction you want to travel.
Click to expand...
:encouragement:
 
I agree that the most intuitive way for the lever to work is vertical for neutral/idle and forwards for a head. If this means it would foul the panel, you could fit a spacer behind the lever assembly.

Alternatively, as long as there's a bit of slack in the cables, it isn't a huge job to move the lever. The old hole will never be invisible unless you're going to paint everything, but a properly done repair would be less unsightly than the dings occasioned by an unintuitive gear leaver!
 
andsarkit said:
The manual is here to configure the linkage: https://f01.justanswer.com/JACUSTOM...control_mn_universal_series_owners_manual.pdf
I also have horizontal neutral and down for forwards and up for reverse which has always seemed quite intuitive.
Click to expand...

I have an old morse which i repaired. I had to read again and again the manual to consume the info but there wasnt other way to do it!
At sections 3-5 the topic is covered, look at Figure 26 where is clear the different set up for "push to open throttle" or "pull to open throttle"
 
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