Originally Posted by mneal

I have a Volvo Penta and it uses basically the same upper gear set-up and mine also makes noises some times when running on a flush tee with no load. I almost took it apart before I figured out (with the help of this kick as% web board) that it is normal for some of them to do that. Whew.
As a related story ........I once was a going to buy a consignment boat from a local parking lots dealer and it made a noise that I thought was the counter balancer gear train (it was a Mercruiser V6) and I wanted a 3rd party shop to check it out. The dealer bought the boat and I am sure he raped the guy who sold it to him. Anyhow, the guy would not let me do a compression test and check it out but agreed to let a 3rd party guy do it. I picked a authorized Volvo Penta repair place to inspect the boat, this was a task sorta because it was before I knew the wealth of information here and I always do my own repair work so I didn't have any repair guys I knew/trusted. Anyhow found one and they seems OK and they charged me 175 bucks for the "check out". They said hey heard a noise that was maybe the gimble bearing. I never heard any noise but the dealer who owned the boat agreed to pay for the gimble bearing replacement so what the heck. At this point I was going to buy the boat and the shop replace bearing and the noise remained so they talked the dealer who owned it into letting them tear the drive apart for the noise I never heard. The messed it up HUGE. The shop manager they never took a SX drive apart.. They had the backlash all hosed up (I think that is what they did anyhow) and it sounded like it was getting hit with a large hammer when the shafts were turning. Then the dealer who owned it tarted talking about lets talk about splitting some if the huge costs we were about to get into. I just walked. In what I know now, I would bet good money that the repair guy heard the idle no load clunking and then it went down hill from there since he did not how to set up a drive.

Originally Posted by 502SCS

Thanks for the reply
Strait through transom exhaust. No flappers that I know of.
The rest is admittedly above me :-)

Originally Posted by Island Hopper

Be sure the spline coupler has grease. If it is dry it will cause this. There is a grease fitting on the back of the engine, where the drive shaft meets the coulpler.