Throttle play

[1hot87gt]

On our new to us 2004 300DA. 5.0’s with B3’s. I immediately noticed when we looked at the boat the first time that the position of both throttles when in neutral seem to be a little further back than I would’ve imagined them to be. I think I’ve read some other people commenting on this as well so I guess it’s pretty common across other models as well. But what I didn’t notice until this weekend is there seems to be a decent amount of play in both of them. They look in amazing condition, all the trim buttons work, as does the button in the center that you push in if you want to advance the throttle in neutral. But the single throttle on my last boat, 1995 Penn Yan with a single 5.7 Mercruiser and Alpha 1 outdrive, was much tighter with practically no play. And that was with all the original throttle cables.

So what I’m asking is, is this normal?

 

[Fill Ess]

I had the same throttles and hated them. Yes neutral is way back from center. When you pull back to engage reverse, then farther back to give it throttle, there's not much range of motion .... but I really only used reverse one engine at a time in idle for docking. New throttle and shift cables and adjustment would help but I wonder how good they were even brand new

 

[1hot87gt]

Ok. At least I feel better. It’s not just me. Thanks

 

[Fill Ess]

This was neurtal on mine (old purchase photo)

 

[Fill Ess]

I think this is from the factory photo of a slightly older one (maybe 2002 since it has the fuel gauges) and the neutral looks way closer to center

 

[Tripsdad]

I had a 2000 Chaparral Signature 300 with Bravo III’s and neutral looked like the picture posted above by @Phil S .
They were 2 years old when I had the boat but my only complaint was that they were little hard to shift into gear.

 

[1hot87gt]

Mine look somewhere between yours and the picture above. The entire housing looks but I’m just concerned with that play. Seems like they should be tighter. But both are the same amount of loose so maybe it just normal. I won’t know until the boat is in the water how they perform, movement, in and out of gear etc. I guess time will tell. Thanks for the pics and the info.