Johnson rods on a Mercury, who would of thought...

Ken

I’m in awe of the Cajones to power thru the clunking /thumping noise that started at low rpm. 😀

Sometimes it makes it easier to find in the end

must be a hell of a swimmer / no great white sharks

Damn auto spell, it should have read 'jonsson'...........

I did confess it was either a brave or stupid move!
When I first got her up on the plane, there was only a slight noise which disappeared completely once on the plane. I actually ran it all the way to wot 4,900 rpm's, for a couple of minutes and it sounded sweet. Backed her off and then getting back on the plane, I could hear the noise again, perhaps a little worse, so I headed home. She ran beautifully at 3500-4000. Just cruising, so I was on level trim and a straight line to the marina.

Approaching the marina, I slowed down and the noise was getting worse so I tied her up, scratched my head and called it a day. Aussies are good swimmers anyway but I my wallet may have needed a life jacket.

RR

Service guys arrived on time, checked oil.....OK, so it's off with the drive.......

Uni-joint and yoke appears OK but even I knew something was wrong when I saw these little round things lying on their backs inside, in a puddle of water......

Gimbal bearing has died due to a small split in the bellows. They're coming back later today with more tools to remove the gimbal bearing. Meanwhile, the drive is going back to their workshop to give it a thorough checking.

Im not overly impressed 'cos when they serviced everything a few months ago, I asked them to check anything that could be worn/damaged and that should include the bellows. Oh well, could be worse......

RR

Your coupler could be the worse for wear after that failure, make sure they check it carefully.

Dropped back this avo' and they have removed the remains of the old bearing. I haven't spoken to the technicians yet but it all looks pretty normal to me............ Thais tend to fix the immediate problem and not always investigate further and I don't know enough to argue about it. They said they doubt there's any further damage so I pretty much have to go with what they say.

I felt like a marine proctologist taking graphic photos here.........

RR

P.S. Top right of the 2nd photo, is that a rusted bolt head or just some rusty water and grease?