Mercruiser Alpha One Shift Shaft not mating properly

[Marc Peternell]

Hi Everyone,
Mercruiser Alpha One (gen 1). I am in the process of replacing my outdrive with a used one. I took the used outdrive apart and replaced the impeller while I had it off of the boat (so I did split the drive in half).

I installed the outdrive and now the Upper Shift Shaft and Intermediate Shift Shaft are not mating up. They do fit together, but the lever end (male end?) can drop down out of the u-shaped housing (call it the female end).

Here is my question... is the u-shaped part (female end) supposed to clamp around the lever to hold it in place and keep it from dropping down? Or, is there supposed to be something internal inside of the drive that holds the lever up into the female end?

I do want to preface this with 2 things. 1. I believe the old drive came off with the boat in neutral, so it may have spread the u-shaped female end apart, whereas I may need to bend it in a little tighter. and 2. I did find this washer on the ground after all was put back together, but it could be unrelated and came out of my toolbox.

I will attach a photo too.

 

[Marc Peternell]

Here is the photo. The side to side/left to right align fine. I'm talking about the up/down where the lever can drop down.

 

[Bt Doctur]

Try to stay with one posting. the SS washer is missing from the lower splined shaft, that's why its dropping down.