New to me Mercury 50hp wont go in reverse!

Hey all, first post here. Just picked up a 1999 smoker craft 160 stinger for a family fishing boat, it has a 1999 mercury 50HP ELPTO outboard on it. When I bought it I was told that it wouldn't go into reverse but that it was a shift cable issue and was given 2 new cables and a smoking deal on the boat.

Well, tonight I pulled the shift cable off and manually shifted it into reverse and neutral and nothing changed when I moved the prop manually.

My thought is the lower unit was removed at somepoint and not put back together correctly, dude I bought it from said he went out one day and it worked fine, the next day it would engage reverse and he isnt mechanically inclined so he didnt get into it besides ordering new cables. I'm hoping that its just that it wasnt aligned correctly or something stupid, any tips on where to start?
Thanks

If someone tried to put the engine in reverse with the engine not running it could have caused the shift rod to bend and then not be able to turn the shift cam far enough to engage reverse. That would be a good reason for it to happen "overnight" without anything ever having been taken apart.

Swagonmaster said:

If someone tried to put the engine in reverse with the engine not running it could have caused the shift rod to bend and then not be able to turn the shift cam far enough to engage reverse. That would be a good reason for it to happen "overnight" without anything ever having been taken apart.

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thanks for the reply. I figured out the issue, turns out the prop shaft had come out at some point and when it did the follower cam didn’t get reinstalled. I have the version that uses the shift rod that goes up and down and has a wedge at the end. Once I pulled the prop shaft out it was obviously missing, and thankfully it was spotless and clean inside. Got a new part and reinstalled and she shifts like butter now.