I recently replaced all of my lower unit oil seals on a 2001 Yamaha F80 TLRY. Took her to the lake today to test her out and the motor would not go into forward or reverse gear. I am not a boat mechanic but thanks to YouTube the job didn’t seem too difficult. I tried to be as careful as possible when disassembling and reassembling but I guess something isn’t right. Any ideas on what I have done before disassembling once again? Oh, and I have never had any type of transmission problem before disassembling.

with the motor OFF shift the lever on the side of motor and try spinning the prop to see if it engages. maybe you didnt connect the shift lever to the shift rod correctly or it slipped off?

I moved the lever into the forward and reverse and the prop just spins. Does that sound like the shift rod is mis placed?

Yes, you will need to drop lower unit and inspect.

if it was working before you probly missed lining up the shift shaft when the lower unit goes back on there is a lot of things that has to happen at the same time..

Yup

Shifter cable?

It sound like the shifter rod is not in the connector on the lower unit. I did this the a few weeks ago when I changed my water pump. I had it correctly, but when I reached for one of the bolts, I let the lower unit drop just enough to separate the two pieces. I know better than to not check, but was supposed to fish a tournament the next morning and skipped a critical step.
Just take the bolts out and lower it enough to see that both parts are aligned and then lift it back up. Put in two bolts and try the shifter and turning the prop before you tighten everything up.
Good luck.

Thanks for the replies. Just like everyone, all I need is the more free time to check it out. Lol

I was able to pull it apart and apparently when I was originally putting it back together I think while I was trying to attach the speedo tube the shift shaft came out of the tube it goes into. Simple fix and now I’m good to go. Hope this helps someone else. If you need to replace lower unit seals it’s not that hard but I would recommend doing all of them at once. The seals are inexpensive.

Glad you got it fixed