Since the lower unit is off, rotate the driveshaft by hand (clockwise) and push/pull the shift rod up and down and notice if there is any noise or clatter while shifting the lower unit through the three detents, foward, neutral and reverse. Fitz
Quote from: "fitz73222"Since the lower unit is off, rotate the driveshaft by hand (clockwise) and push/pull the shift rod up and down and notice if there is any noise or clatter while shifting the lower unit through the three detents, foward, neutral and reverse. FitzFarley does he have to worry about yanking the shift rod off the end of the shaft? I somehow over rotated the one on my '98 70 Merc and spun it past reverse off the shift cam... That led to opening the lower unit and that cost some $$ in new parts but it was a good learning experience..
Unless you are the luckiest SOB to get it back in you had to disassemble the gearcase to get the shiftshaft spline back into the cam. I've only done it once and that was enough!