Water leaking around shift shaft

"To correct an overheating eng

"To correct an overheating engine, I have managed to change the thermostat, flapper, and impeller...and a few gaskets along the way. Reading the Seloc manual, I believe that I put it back together correctly (lower unit). No spare parts anyway. Two questions though. While running the earmuffs on the lower unit with water flowing, I get a fairly steady stream of water that squirts from the lower area of the shift shaft arm. The water seems to come from the lower unit pump. When I matched the lower unit and upper gear housing together, they slid together correctly with the impeller tube lining up properly.
Secondly, the manual says that the short arm of the shift shaft must face forward when mating the upper gear housing to the lower unit. This doesnt seem to make sense because it barely seats in the metal slot on the upper gear housing. Shouldnt the long end sit in there? Seems to fit better with no slack. With the long end in the slot, it seems to shift better too.
Anyone?"

"I just performed the same wor

"I just performed the same work on my Alpha drive. I'm having little trouble picturing what you are trying to describe. I don't see how water would come from the sterndrive pump and come out the shift linkage. There is no path between the two. A spray of water will come from two holes in the transom. Maybe water was squirting up from the muffs? As far as the linkage, it should be straight forward, literally and figuratively! Do what I did, I had the clymers book, the Mecruiser Manuel on CD, and printouts of HOW TOO's from other web sights on how to change the pump. If one set of instructions wasn't clear, I would check with another. Check out this link and compare what you did with the pics and instructions.
Chris
http://www.mercstuff.com/waterpumpinst.htm"

"There are two small 1/4"

"There are two small 1/4" holes in the plate immediately in front of the water pump, that are intended to drain the pump chamber after use. They lead directly to the opening where the shift shafts couple, but there should not normally be any noticable amount of water from them.
There will be a certain amount of water leakage around the slinger seal on top of the pump housing around the vertical drive shaft. This slinger has to be in place or you will get a lot of leakage from this opening, as the shaft is a very loose fit thru it. Is it in place?
The only other possibility is perhaps the water tube coupler fitup is not right, and you may then have a lot of water leakage there.
Hope that helps,
Rod"