help mercury 20hp 200 wont go into netrual

[ebentraywick]

HI, i have a 1970? merc 200 (20hp) when i got i had 2 buy the exuast manifold and i pit that on and it started after a few pulls but some reason i cant get it in 2 netrual. reverse and forward work great but when i pull the recoil its spins the prop and i will try every diffrent poistion 2 get it in netrual but it doesnt. any ideas what it chould be?? one thing i did was get some gear oil but i havent tried it yet im good at cars and dirt bikes but outboards are not my thing..