OMC u-joint shaft removal/ shift cable placement

[swinds00]

1992 OMC Cobra 5.8L. Bellows are bad so pulled drive. I've read to release and remove bellows from the top, then both side pins and replace back through the top, but nothing about the shift cable. (1) Is it ok for the cable to stay hooked up when the side pins are off? The manual says to unhook from shift plate, unscrew through transom, and unscrew both bolts on transom end. Is this necessary? Or will there be enough free play to allow it to stay in? (2) Im also replacing the ujoints while im in there. I've read to pull the 4 bolts from the carrier bearing to remove the entire ujoint shaft assembly, the manual says something about shims when reassembling, but I've read another post saying just to re-install. I'd rather not take the entire drive to the machine shop, but he shim idea isnt very pleasing. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[cr2k]

If you don't change anything in the drive (gears etc,) just make sure you put the same shims back in. The shims are there to make up for slight variances is machining, so the gears match. Changing the seals, u-joints and other things outside of the drive won't cause need to be set up again. Just keep the shims together and put all of them back.