1989 Johnson/evinrude lower unit

Good evening all.. I am new to boating and recently purchased a 1974 16' mirrocraft with a 89 Johnson 20hp outboard, long story short I got the shaft. anyways I dropped the lower unit to check the water pump and sure as chit its melted into the housing. my immediate question is should I be able to move the shift-link up and down in the lower unit and when I put the driveshaft in, it doesn't seem to engage, when I spin it the prop shaft doesn't move and I can't seem to be able to move the shift link up or down to engage the gear. any help will be greatly appreciated, thank you

Welcome Fred. What does the lower unit oil look like? Did it shift before you removed the lower unit? Are the coils melted to the head? Paint discolored?

hello timguy...thanks for the response. the oil is old and dirty the motor itself did not over heat all the paint is good I just came in from garage turns out I wasn't pushing hard enough on shift linkage, I was able to get the trans to engage so thats good but it did get hot enough to melt the plastic spacer tube enough to distort it so I have to cut it off ( already ordered a new one). and yes it did shift and ran good for about 10mins lol...got hot and wasn't peeing and started smoking mor than normal so I shut it down, lucky for me DNR towed me back to the ramp...thanks again timguy