No Forward Or Reverse!!!

I dropped the lower unit again and spun the shaft comming out of the gear box to nuetral. I also put the controls to nuetral. I checked to see if the controls were spinning the long shaft to put it in gear and it was spinning . Now when i bolted the lower unit back up it would just stay in nuetral. It looked to me that the spline shaft comming out of the gear box wasnt engauging with the splined coupling . and i looked up into the coupling to see if it was stripped and it looked fine. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
thank you

[jb123]

when you slide lower unit UP....everything wont align automatically so you MAY have to use yor finger/screwdriver etc to align water tube and shift shaft as you slide it that last inch.

i9 watched it with a flash light go into the coupling , it looked like the splines were only at the very top of that coupling and the shaft wasnt reaching the splines. and it cant go up any more.

[jb123]

then ensure lower unit goes into gear by dropping it, turn shift shaft both ways and turning driveshaft and ensure prop turns.

it MAY bepossible you bent either the upper shaft or the top pivot when you installed the first time, but ive never heard about that happening.

the shift shaft turns and the lower unit shaft does also but when i put both the shift shaft and lower unit shaft in nutral and bolt it back up it wont go into reverse or forward.

[jb123]

so...your lower unit goes into rev- n- for by hand.... then it has to be the shift shaft or cable.