Just for information - the gear selection mechanism on Freddy (6HP Mercury 4 stroke) failed a few weeks ago. Forward neutral and reverse are selected by rotating a shaft that goes through the "pillar" of the outboard, just below the engine. There's a plastic "winged" collar staked to this shaft and one of the wings of the collar is connected by a pull/push rod to the gear lever on the starboard side of the engine.
The collar cracked making it "free" on the shaft so gear control was lost. Mercury did not have any spare shaft / collar assemblies in the UK and I had to wait for 3 weeks for one to arrive. Once here, it took about 3 hours work for the repair to be completed.
Putting 2 and 2 together and making 5, I wonder if this "out of stock" condition for the part indicates that this is the beginning of a common problem, so it might be worth checking the collar / shaft condition during the winter........
