Need your opinions

[chumbucket]

I'm trying to help out a buddy. He's looking at buying a used motor. We looked at this mid-'90's Merc. Everything checks out pretty well. The only area of possible concern that I could see was the shift rod. It appears that the alignment was off a bit and at some point someone may have ground out the hole to the lower unit to get it in and shift. You can see in the pics where it comes down through the steering tube, it favors the rear of the tube and is hard up against it. The lower unit case is ground with an elongated hole with splines showing. The motor does seem to shift in and out of gear okay.
So my question; should he be concerned with this or not?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/bospa/DSCF0349.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/bospa/DSCF0345.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/bospa/DSCF0346.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/bospa/DSCF0350.jpg

[spareparts]

thats real unusual, pick up on the lower unit, like your trying to trim the motor up and see if therre is any movement in the swivel(area above the pics you took), if there is a lot of movemnet in the swivel bracket, it can get expensive to repair(lot of labor).

[randlemanboater]

That would be a red flag to me.......I don't know much, but when you have to grind new holes to make something work, something is wrong.

[reelapeelin]

Where the rod goes thru the lower case...the elongated hole...obviously that's freshly cut metal...it may work now, but over time, who knows?...what really worries me is the hole being so much larger than stock all the opportunities for things, water, etc to get in there...unless he's being GIVEN this motor, I'd pass..what's BS sayin' about it?

[willy]

With my limited experience I would have just one thing to say, walk away

[captpete13]

I've seen this before. The motor mounts are beat. If there is not too much rust on the motor it still might be able to come apart.

[chumbucket]

OK. Thanks guys. I'll talk to BS too and see what he thinks.

[bigshrimpin]

CB - I'll be happy to give you my expert opinion. Give me a call. Looks like the bottom yoke is on backwards or perhaps someone replaced the yoke with the wrong one . . . just thinking out loud. You can probably measure the spacing and tell right away. I'd be glad to help your buddy.