I changed one on a first or 2nd year (1986) 9.9 Mercury. I didn’t have to pull the power-head,the tiller comes off with removal of a big nut or two. This tiller uses cables and has the gearshift integrated into it. The tiller was discontinued some years later in favor of a more robust design, but I got lucky and found someone selling a used one on E-Bay.
Like has already been said, older models were 9.8’s – totally different motors.
DAve
