Recently put a new impeller in my 1969 merc 650 with the thunderbolt ignition. After stabbing the lower unit back in it failed the shift tests. well we didnt know at the time, so we took it out to the water hose and fired it up. it started just fine, but the prop was in reverse, and when we shifted into forward it still stayed in reverse. so we dropped the lower unit again, after reading many posts on here, we messed with the lower shift shaft and found that there were 3 detents that it woul stop in. F, N, R. forward on the shift shaft had about 270 degrees of freeplay as the forums said., then there was N, and reverse. And yes i turned the shift shaft counterclock wise to get from F to N to R. then back clockwise to go back to N and F from R. Se we put the control box in forward asnd stabbed the lower unit back in. tested it again and not working so pulled it back out. This time i could only find nuetral (N) and forward(F) on the lower shift shaft when turning it with pliers. No reverse could be found. Then we noticed that the shaft that goes up into and below the powerhead that attatches to the shift linkage wass pushed up out of guide hole that it sits in, so we hit it with a hammer and it went back into that hole, however the prop was still in forward and i couldnt find reverse on the lower shift shaft when turning with pliers. A forum i read said that you turn that lower shift shaft counterclok wise from forward to get to N then R. So i did that. in N the prop spun freely either direction. But one more turn counterslok wise would just pop it back into forward, instead of into reverse. Well after 2 days of pulling and then restabbing the LU, i just decided to put it back 2gether and go test it. The prop was in forward when we aligned the splines of the lower shift shaft to the upper shift shaft, as well as the control box was in forward. so we took it to the water hose and tested it. First off, just to say, we did bypass the neutral start safety switch. so it starts in gear now. the test revieled that the prop was in forward gear, and no matter where we moved the control box it stayed in forward, and had no neutral and no reverse even when we pushed the control box all the way into reverse. we checked all mechanisms for the shift assembly from the control box to the lower unit, and they all turn properly. but it wont shift out of forward or into neutral. Please help! posted january 30 2011
