phughes69

I just removed the Alpha drives off my boat to do water pumps, bellows and gimble bearings. The drives are the R drives (1978 vintage) Ive done MR and Alpha drives before so not my 1st go round. The drives shifted fine before and they have new lower unit shift cables installed before I got the boat. I pulled the drives off just fine, did the water pumps. When reassembling I made sure that the washer between the shift shaft and the lever was in place and the shift shaft was pointed forward when the drive was locked in forward gear. When I was sliding the drive back on I made sure the shift lever on the drive mated up with the the shift lever saddle in the bell housing. I also lubed up the shift slide that goes into the outdrive that is connected to the end of the shift cable. About 1 inch before the drive is completely on I can move the shift cable and see the slide moving in the outdrive on the side and it is correctly lined up with the roller that is on the shift arm. , but when the drive is completely bolted up the shift cable and slide lock up and I cant move it at all. I can see from underneath that the shift cable is pointed forward and is correctly sitting in the shift lever saddle. I cant even get the lever to turn by trying to pry it to the side. I can see that the shift lever in the drive has a little tiny bit of vertical free play so I know it is not binding up there. It is just the shift slide is not moving back and forth. I did pull the end of the cable off to get the cable out and replace the shift cable bellow, but have not reinstalled the ends yet. But I cant even move the cable at all when it is completely bolted up, BUT I can move it when the drive is about 1 inch from being bolted up (before the shift shaft and the saddle mate together)