"mike hicks" wrote
So, it looks like I'm going to have to
change the shift cable on my Alpha drive.
How much cursing and unhappiness am I facing here?

I just replaced mine in conjunction with bellows and gimbal bearing
replacement. You don't need any rocket science, just a lot of patience with
parts that are awkward to access. The most difficult thing for me was
getting the crimp clamp on the end of the cable bellows squeezed into a
reasonably round shape. (There's probably a special tool for this
somewhere.) The adjustment isn't really complicated, it just takes some
going back and forth to zero in on the correct spot. This is a good outline
of the replacement procedu http://www.mercstuff.com/shiftcable2.htm