I lost neutral

hello all you boat guru's I have a new problem to tease your brains.

I have a 1968 mercury thunderbolt 500 50hp 4 cyl motor. a couple of weeks ago I dropped the lower unit for the first time. (first time I have ever done it anyways). I did my first evet impeller replacement and it went well (i thought). two problems arose
1. it's still not pumping water, key is in place impeller turns with shaft.

2. after the unit was was put back in/on I can't seem to get it in to neutral, as in I have the controls in neutral but when I went to tank test the prop is turning and no matter where I put the control theres no neutral. I feel really dumb here but I followed the written instructions and the video walk throughs from youtube. this never happened before I took the lower off so I know I screwed somethig up. the contols are working correctly from what I can see with the cover off it looks like it shifts fine up in the motor section. any ideas

p.s I did turn thr fly wheel a little to get the splines to match up, could that have been the mistake?

Re: I lost neutral

Going to have to drop the LU again, at least enough to get the shift linkage splines to separate. With a pair of vice grips, grasp and rotate the disconnected lower unit shift shaft through 3 distinct cam followed positions. Rotate the shift shaft till it is in the center position and the prop turns freely.

Go to your remote control and put it in N. Reconnect your LU to the midsection and your problems should disappear. Rotating your crankshaft to align the drive shaft did not cause your problem.....you didn't have your engine and remote in the same gear when you reinstalled it.

Mark

Re: I lost neutral

AS FAR AS the water pump , may have blockage between pump and TELL TALE (PEE HOLE) AND WHEN YOU HAVE LUdown make sure the water pipe is installed correctly in water pump as you reinstall LU

Re: I lost neutral

FLATHEAD MAC said:

AS FAR AS the water pump , may have blockage between pump and TELL TALE (PEE HOLE) AND WHEN YOU HAVE LUdown make sure the water pipe is installed correctly in water pump as you reinstall LU

Click to expand...

Yes! I re-read the post and overlooked this part concentrating on the shift problem. Thanks for picking up on it for him.

Mark

Re: I lost neutral

o.k. i will give that a try this weekend. as far as not getting water to pump goes i cleared out the copper pipe in the middle unit and tried to backflush though the pee hole tube on top and through the copper tube on bottom with no luck I think it is plugged between where the copper tube goes up in to the motor and where the teltail tube comes out of the motor. I may just have to shut it down and take it to the merc mech in the spring. It will surely hurt the wallet but maybe not as much as I could potentially hurt it by breaking things by not knowing what I'm doing. but tell me what you think I have a couple of weeks to play with it before it gets winterized and put away.
Shane