I just finished dropping my lower unit on my Mercury 200HP Offshore and replacing the water pump. A local tech told me to put the throttle in forward before I took the unit off. When I replaced water pump and attempted to put the lower unit back on, had issues getting it to line up. After a bit of shaking it went up enought for me to put two of the bolts on and then tighten it up. After getting everything back together and tighten, I got into the boat to crank the motor to see how my work did, the motor would not go into netural so I could crank. After some resistence, it cranked but it was also in gear. Did I not line the gear shaft up and could it have possibly jamed. I assume I need to drop the unit again but before I do, I'm looking for some ideas on what the problem may be. Did I need to put in forward or would netural have worked? Been a while since I was on the forum so could really use some help to resolve this pain. Thanks.
Randy
Randy