Thanx again for all the feed back.

The cause of the failure is still unknown.
I called my insurance company and asked them to send an adjustor out to have a look.
I MIGHT have hit something.
There are enough marks and dings on a 20 year old drive to have him suspect an impact so
he told me to take it to the Marina/dealer.

The drive was full of water plus the broken stuff, so they wrote up a quote for everything from the flywheel back, including the coupler, transom, gimbal and drive.
It has been approved and new oe parts ordered.

That is a good result imho.

The marina may be able to diagnose the failure once it is apart.

If they are allowing new OE parts, and you want new OE parts, make sure the marina installs the new OE parts.

This is where I don't trust people. Seen it way too many times.

Sounds like you may have gone from ouch , to ahhh.

Might not be a bad idea to throw in a few bucks to upgrade to a better gimbal ring .

The insurance companies are raping the boat owners on their estimates and expect the boat dealers to comply with aftermarket stuff and boats.net pricing. When an alpha outdrive is involved they the insurance companies at least half now a days quotes the SEI units and pricing. Not right. The worst is progressive insurance and they think they know all about boats and how it should be fixed plus done their way. I have a story about the shaft job they did to a boat owner that I ended up getting his boat.

I am fortunately in Canada and there is no such issue with the insurance company.
The quote for all new Merc parts and dealer labour is $16K. 9K for the drive alone.

I am also fortunate that the service mgr at the marina is a friend and boating buddy, and I am confident
that the right stuff will be properly installed.

Here's hoping I get back in the water this season.

Good news on the insurance, curious how long have you had the boat, and your buddy the service manager how long has he been maintaining it? Time wise on the repair it is just a couple day job I am sure you will be floating soon, best of luck.

I have had the boat for about 7 years.
I do my own routine maintenance.
The only big job the boat has had was a transom plate install about 4 years ago, so the engine etc was removed at that time, by the dealer.
I don't know if the ujoint is grease able or not.
If there is a lack of drive maintenance, that would be on me, not the dealer.
It has not been routinely removed for service as it appears, is a good idea....

It would be a good idea to once a season remove the drive grease u joints and the splines. Like I said when the parts are in it is only a couple day job, you'll be in ship shape soon!!

Got the boat back a few weeks ago and have had it out twice since.
Couldn't be happier.
Everything works as new, well it is.
I got back about 12 mph that I have been losing over the last few years.
My old drive has been on the way out for awhile, must have been a gimbal bearing or drive bearing bound up.
The whole drive train is freed up and it is very responsive. It gets on plane much faster blasts from 30 to 60 mph very quickly,
I'll do a video next time I'm out.