Replacing Alpha water pump today....
 

Bought the water pump kit, new upper and lower housing, gaskets wear plate, etc.
I'll be leaving the upper gear case housing attached to the gimbal.
After I'm done replacing the pump, and prior to reattaching the lower unit, I'll pull the upper case off to check the gimbal bearing and grease the u-joints. I have the gasket kit for this too. Hell, I even bought new upper and lower oil drain plugs with seals.

Are there any pitfalls I should know about, or is it as straight forward as it seems?

5 nuts and 2 allen bolts hold the drive on, dont forget to disconnect the speedo tube. R&R the impeller is straight forward, rub some grease on the inside on the housing so you dont have a dry start.. The biggest thing to watch for is the shift fork when you split the drive. Make sure you dont lift it off the bottom half so you dont have to play around getting it right on reassembly.

That darn shift fork has got me worried. I"ll make sure it's right. Would hate to disassemble it again just for that.

Howd it go?

You probably already did it, but being in forward before disassembly and leaving both halves in forward helps re mate the shift fork. I have (unfortunately) gotten good at mine.

We have low water and I have to do that pump once a year. (picks up sand and gravel)

I do the housing every time because the housing seems like a weak link.

Sorry I didn't get back.

Finished it in about 3 hours. Having never done it before I figure 3 hours aint bad. Didn't get started till around 2:30.
Had no trouble tearing it apart and no trouble reassembling. I did have it in forward as recommended by the manual. All gears work correctly when finished.
I wanted to pull the upper section and grease the u-joints and coupler but didn't have time so we just put the lower back on. I'll tackle that another day.

I was having an overheating problem when I fired it up for the first time this season. Checked the t-stat, that was ok but replaced it anyhow. Knowing the raw water pump impeller haddn't been changed in a while I thought a blade or two had broken off.
When I pulled the pump apart yesterday it was intact, but the blades had taken a set and weren't making contact with the pump body.
When it was done I fired it up and it all worked perfectly. Temp was nice and stable.

Thanks.