something was off, start over, drop the lower unit, put the shifter in fwd, rotate the shift shaft clockwise(when looking from above) while rotaing the prop shaft counter clockwise( looking from behind) to lock the lower unit in fwd gear, slide the lower unit up while rotaing the propshaft counter clockwise(looking from the rear), once all the way up, you should be lined up, snug one or two nuts up and shift the shifter while someone spins the prop shaft to see if it locks gear when its supposed to, and spins freely when in neutral. A couple of things to look out for, make sure you didn't drop the washer off the shift shaft that protects the shift shaft bushing, make sure the shift coupler(brass thing that stays in the upper unit) lines up with the shift linkage in the bell housing, the straight pice at the top of the coupler points fwd when the shifter is in fwd gear
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