I can't turn the drive shaft more than a wiggle.
The shift is just a splined shaft which can be turned using a 12 pt box
wrench. According to the manual turning it fully clockwise is forward. It
seems logical that it is a spacer problem allowing the fwd and reverse gears
to both be touching the drive shaft at the same time. There are
signs of there being too much heat in there at one time because the water
pump alighnment tube was melted. I wonder if some of the spacers on the
propeller shaft may have been plastic and suiffered the same fate?
Meharty

"Mark" wrote in message
wsgroups.com...
I wonder if your problem is similar to a problem I had where the lower
unit
was intermittently not shifting ( my post on overheating at low rpm's).
When the water pump in the outdrive was replaced, there was a spacer that
somehow disappeared when the split drive was re-assembled (not permitting
the shift shaft to fully engage).

Can you turn the upper outdrive driveshaft and make the prop turn (versus
turning the prop shaft to make the upper driveshaft turn)? The gearing
does
make it difficult to turn the shaft by turning the prop. Also make sure
the
shift lever ou the outdrive is pointing forward (so the unit is in forward
gear).

Mark (the rail & canopy hook guy)
www.ripnet.com/vtf/prod03.htm

"Mark" wrote in message
...
Hi Guru's,
I took off the foot to install the new waterpump. I had difficulty
getting it back on and noticed that the prop won't turn the drive shaft
no
matter what position I have the shift shaft in. When I was removing the
prop, it moved backwards and clicked a time ot two when I was getting it
into position to wedge the block. Any idea's on what the problem might
be?

Thanks, Mark