Shift Shaft Seal Question

I'm going to replace the shift shaft housing in an alpha one gen two outdrive.
There doesn't seem to be much info out there for this job. I did see one site that it was stated to align the shift shaft forward so the c arm stays in place when removing the shift shaft.
My question is, which way is forward?
I know it sounds kind of a self explanatory thing, but I don't want to mess this simple task up and have the c arm fall.
If I had to guess, it would face towards the front of the boat.
Anyone?

I did mine last year and had the same questions. Forward is the shift shaft arm pointed to 12 oclock. I was scared I was going to screw it up somehow, but it really was not a big deal at all - 10min job once the drive was off and split.

This is how I did it:
Put the lower on the bench/stand upright and make sure it wont move on you, put the shift shaft in forward and simultaneously turn the propshaft by hand counterclockwise so you're sure its completely engaged. Remove the two bolts, then just pull it up slowly. The one O ring on the bottom will probably stick in the drive so pull that out, remove the C clip that holds the shaft in the seal, and do it all in reverse. A tad of grease on the shaft won't hurt. You don't want to somehow knock it out of F with the shaft out.

Are you getting water in your gearlube? That's what was happening with mine - pressure test before confirmed it was leaking there and another after confirmed that fixed it.

Thank you, that is a great how to.. Yes, water in the gear lube. I replaced the small oring on the lower but it didn't fix it, this is the only other place that I can see that it would leak, where it's coming out.

Other common place for gearlube leaks is the seal carrier - the cone shaped thing under the water pump impeller. I started replacing that every time I do the water pump. Less common is the propshaft seals and the upper shaft seals at the top of the drive were the vertical shaft fits into the upper drive housing. But both of those are a bigger jobs - I would not go there until are sure it is not leaking at the shift shaft or seal carrier.

The shift shaft seal looks pretty dry. I started to pull it out last week and thought I had better look into it first.
That's where the oil is pooling also, right at the shift shaft. That's with a fresh oil change, and not starting it.

It is either the shift shaft or prop shaft seal thats leaking both will allow water in. Easy to fix with the correct tools.