Transfer case shaft points between drive positions, can't mount motor

[Marzon]

I have a 2006 ranger stuck in 4WD. I am trying to replace the shift motor. But when I removed the old motor, the arrow shaped transfer case shaft is pointing to about 11 O'clock, which is halfway between the 2H and 4H marks on the case. I can manually rotate the shaft to about 4 O'clock, which would be the right distance to be pointing at 4H if it was pointing at 2H to start with. The shift motor arrived aligned pointing at 2H as marked on the case. I can energize it and move it to 4H or 4L but because the shaft is not pointing to any position the shift motor indexes to, I cannot mount the new shift motor. The truck was driving fine until it got stuck in 4WD. Any idea how to fix this.