frustrating problem, and maybe got pooched

[newport75-27]

Heya guys, love the community here. Hoping it's groovy to hop in with a problem.

I've a 2001, 15hp 2-stroke johnson. Thing looks lovely when I bought it a couple of weeks ago from offerup, but the locking pin seems to hop out whenever it's put into forward gear. It's also now not fully pushing the locking mechnism out of place allowing me to pull start the engine in the first place. I tried directly stratening it out a little but am having an issue just manufering the shifting lever. It seems to just want to remain in neutral and take a grand effort to shift to reverse or forward.

Pretty annoyed I didn't know enough to be as thorough as I should have been checking it out, as he got it running and shifted it while it was running in a live stream. Thoughts on where to start? I'm not a mechanic by any means, more of a tech guy, but I can google and youtube the hell out of almost anything!

[boats.net]

It should lock when in neutral and reverse but not in forward gear, hard to say what is not working but may need to replace the locking mechanism.

[newport75-27]

Thanks, I was able to fix up the shifting, and replaced the locking link from the shift lever to the locking pin for the starter cord. Issue with it is the new locking pin (matched the part number for the model number of the engine to) bulges from it's position and causes friction for shifting. Looks like it's bulging and might even pop out again. Not sure what I' missing there.