Working on friends 290 sundancer, 1994 twin 4.3 mercs with alpha drives. Trying to install a drive, when in forward the shift arm is not even close, we had to put the drive in reverse to get the drive off. There isn’t enough adjustment in the cable to do the shift cable setting procedure...has anyone seen anything like this? Any other ideas? Any help would be much appreciated.

Is this the l/h rotation drive?

Sigh yup, it’s counter rotating, clymer book has no mention of it being in reverse if counter rotating, we are all set now, it lines up if the control is in reverse, thanks for the reply.