Dave:
You haven't mentioned the issue you are having with your Yacht Specicalties shift control. Is it the plastic housing that has begun to crack? If so, I did post some info back in 2007/2008. If your housing has cracked, but still is generally intact, and you are a creative DIY sort ... here is a cut-and-paste of my post that a DIY repair is possible. One change I might make is to use polyester resin instead of epoxy. In the relatively large quantity I needed to fill up the inside of the housing, the epoxy did go into exothermic mode which was somewhat scary. My repair steps were also were quite a bit more involved than described below, but it has been too long ago to write them all up again now. However if you are really serious about giving it a try, then please use this site's eMail feature to let me know:
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"I read somewhere (probably deep in this forum’s archives) that people have had problems with the plastic housing breaking inside where the shift and throttle lever shafts and cables are anchored to the housing. The accounts cite that if a cable anchor or throttle handle breaks free inside, one might not be able to (say) shift out of forward into reverse. Or the throttle might get stuck at full (or idle). Or the broken-loose part could jam in the steering chain. Any of which would be a heart stopper for sure if the failure occurred (say) after committing to the final turn into a berth. When I had my part removed from the pedestal, I did discover the beginnings of a stress crack near one of the cable anchor points. The web references said that this pedestal part is no longer available and a casting shop would have to custom-make a replacement. I decided instead to reinforce all the potentially suspect areas by encasing/epoxying them with custom bent u-channels I made from stainless steel sheet metal. Then I poured in lots of West Systems epoxy all around to ensure that nothing could possibly ever break apart. "
