Helping work on an alpha one outdrive (gen 1) and the shift shaft isn’t going straight when it’s in forward gear. If it’s suppose to be at 12 o’clock in forward gear it’s only going to about 11 o’clock. This isn’t allowing the shift fork to align to get the outdrive back on that was removed for an impeller replacement. Any ideas what’s going on with this? Everything looks fine with the shift cable but it’s like it’s not allowing it to get to the correct location.

thanks for the help!

Edited. Just saw pic.
Yup , that should be straight.
It's roughly in the shifter neutral position. Removing outdrive shouldn’t have changed that.
Make sure shifter is put into WOT forward.

If still issue for some odd reason

Make sure #4 on is done correctly.

https://www.mercstuff.com/shiftcable2.htm

Probably have to loosen the lower up from the upper to get those 2 pieces mated back together.