25 HP Honda shifts hard or not at all?

All of the sudden my BF25 Honda either would not shift into neutral to start or would require excessive pressure to make it shift. This all started suddenly so I knew something had gone wrong. This has been an intermittent problem. Just when I was ready to go to the dealer it would stop doing it. I had visions of big problems but this is a almost new engine. I did hit a rock a few weeks ago so there was a possibility of lower unit damage.

I was out on the lake yesterday and when I went to start the engine it absolutely would NOT shift into neutral. This effectively disabled the engine so I had no choice but to remove the cowling and try to find the source of the problem again. I wiggled the shift lever back and forth while I watched the shifter cam. It was then I noticed that the bottom of the compartment, under the shifter cam was a different color as the rest of the bottom. I used a little trouble light that we use night fishing and discovered that the small, square, plastic cover that goes on the fuse box had fallen down into the bottom of the engine compartment. Apparently the fuse box cover was vibrating back and forth in this small area and was blocking the shifter lever part of the time.

Thinking back I do not remember this cover ever being on the fuse box. It might have been down in the bottom all along. Once I retrieved the cover and snapped it back into place I found it VERY difficult to remove. It is hard to believe it popped off on its own. This was a used engine with around 20 hours on it when I bought it. It took me around 20 minutes to fish the cover out of  that tight spot. The original owner may have dropped it and just gave up after a few minutes.

This was simple fix that saved me an expensive trip to the repair shop but it might have been a huge problem if I had needed to start the engine in a hurry just when that dern little cover was under the cam.

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