Reinstalling lower unit, cant find neutral - 1990 yamaha 30

Outboard is 1990 yamaha 30hp 3cyl, 30eld is model number. Ok so i pulled the lower unit, installed the water pump repair kit, and when i reattached the lower unit, i am now unable to get it back into neutral. When i did get it started, it started in fwd, even though the remote, and the shift lever on the cowl are both in neutral. I have searched around the web, and talked to a few people here in town, but still cant come up with anything. Talked to someone yesterday, and was told to pull the prop shaft, put the shift rod back in, then put the prop shaft back in. Dont know about this though. I will post a few pictures of the shift rod, that might help to find a correct answer here.


How exactly, to the best of anyones knowledge here, can i find neutral in the lower unit? Thanks in advance to anyone that might be able to help. I can take more pictures if needed.

 

The gearbox defaults to forward gear with the dog clutch spring pressure when disconnected so removing and replacing the bottom end should be done with everything in forward gear to prevent inadvertant movement to another gear and get the initial adjustment more easily, then fine adjust for reverse and neutral.

You may have over adjusted at the rod so loosening off i.e. lengthening the rod should get neutral and reverse, however if you have unnecessarily removed the gearshift rod from the bottom end and misplaced it then the shaft gear rod will not have positioned in the detents and will jam, you need to redo this and check for all gears working properly before refitting the bottom end as above. It may be possible to do this without pulling the shaft but I'd need to refresh my memory on this. I may have a manual for this engine or similar.

 

Thank you for your help but hmm i dont quite fully follow you. "positioned in detents"
Did you happen to find that manual?

Thanks again.

 

If you look at the bottom of the gear shift rod, the wedge shaped piece, there should be, if memory serves me, three indents or detents for each gear position, the rounded end of the shaft rod that's fixed to the dog clutch fits in these indents against spring pressure and clicks into each and holds the different gear positions. When the shift rod moves down, it pushes the rod and dog clutch to the rear for neutral and reverse, pull the shift rod up and the spring pushes the dog clutch from reverse through neutral and stops at forward, take the rod out and it will stay in forward and may dislodge the end of the shaft rod. Will look for the manual today.

 

Did you get it working ok? My instructions were a little out from faded memory, select reverse on the gearbox when reinstalling!