Look carefully where the cable is attached at the neutral shifter lever. It I held by a simple clamping affair. Loosen the clamp, then pull the cable upward a bit and retighten. But before you monkey with that, you do realize it won’t shift unless running don’t you? If not running, at least rotating as when pulling the starter rope. As soon as it stops rotating, it goes back into forward.

The clutch release lever and water pump are attached to the 1/4″ thick plate #17, above the gearcase. After disconnecting the clutch cable up above at the shifter lever remove the four bolts and drop the entire lower unit, including the #17 plate. The clutch cable will come down with it. Not to fear, it feeds back up through a copper tube.

The clutch spring #35 has a tab on the top end. As the spring rotates, the tab comes around and is interrupted by the trip lever #29. That stops the spring and unwinds it a bit, and it loses its grip on the clutch hub, voila!–neutral. If that sounds weird, just think, most mfr’s used the system in one form or another as some time. Gale, Johnson, Evinrude, Mercury, Champion, Martin, to nave a few. Some, such as Champion used two clutches to get forward and reverse. Last but not least, OMC used the basic theory by the thousands in their electric shift motors.