Great, thanks for the great reply.
I have had the lower unit apart before to replace seals etc.. This was about 4 years ago and I don't remember if I had this problem at that time or not, maybe just slightly. This is something that just seems like is just getting worse, starting lowly. My profession is heavy equipment mechanic. The problem is that after hitting a sandbar lightly it will be just a little hard to shift into neutral from forward and a little hard to shift from neutral to reverse. And the harder you hit the sand bar, the harder it is to make those shifts. Most of the time I will hit bottom going very slowly trying to get to the right spot for fishing or starting off after drifting onto the bar.
This last bar we hit was bad, real bad and I could not even move the throttle back to idle. Now, after I get it back in neutral, restart, and run for a while all is good again, easy shifting and throttle. Correct me if you think I'm wrong, but if there was damage to the shifting parts in the LU, would it not be hard to shift all the time? Also, this last time, I could not even pull the throttle down, right, the throttle would not move. The shifter linkage does not even move until the last part of throttle travel, right? If it was a cable or lube point problem, it would be all the time also. thoughts?
Just one more thing, before everyone thinks I spend all of my time grounded, I really don't, this is a 1996 motor on a 1996 boat that I bought new and it has the original prop on it. There is a saying in Ocean City, there two types of people in Ocean City, one that has been on sand bars and others that don't have boats!