1100 mercury lower unit question

[PacWest]

Problem - couldn't get reverse to kick in.
What I did - swapped in a prop shaft, propeller, and reverse gear from a 1250 LU. bought new control cables. Installed new shift rod
All three gears work pre assembly.
assembled in forward gear and verified by hand shifting the shift rod. secured the control cables.
Result - the cable anchor barrel is bottomed out and just enough to get to reverse.
Reverse does spin but there's a rattle that sounds like a marble in a dryer.... and when shifting into reverse there's no kick, or grind or thud it just starts to make the rattle noise.
Can you help?

[derekfl]

You are not shifting far enough into reverse. So the clutch dogs are ratcheting instead of locking in place. And you’re very quickly going to wear the top off the clutch dog so it’s going to stop working at all. You have to find more travel in the linkage to push the center clutch dog farther into the reverse gear. If the 1100 is like the MerCruiser alpha or the V6 lower unit you might be able to separate the lower unit and move the shift shaft one tooth closer to reverse. It’s possible you might be one tooth off on the registration the way you have it put together.

[PacWest]

520265
Thankyou for the response.
I knew the shift rod was not stock.
I never questioned the connecting arm.
Hopefully this helps someone else.