Ferm, Chum And The Rest. . . . .

[spareparts]

you are supposed to tighten the allen screw then back off till the slide will rotate freely, this keeps it from bindig up, there should be little to no end play in the slide. If you drop your lower unit to do a water pump, look at the shift shaft, make sure its stainless(shiney looking), look at the splines real carefull to make sure they aren't corroded. before mercruiser changed to stainless, i used to replace them all the time for sifting issues