So I took out the boat for the second time today and it ran great until this evening. All of a sudden it began making a violent grinding type sound from the drive or motor and almost sounded like I was dragging something as the entire boat started vibrating. I stopped and check the prop and all and everything looked fine. That said I can't go over idle speed in forward or reverse without getting this sound so that was my day. Also, I noticed my bilge running out a lot of water and there is some sort of slow dripping leak near the drive. Could my drive be loose or something causing this sound? Please help, Chris.

sounds like the coupler blew up or maybe the U joint

agree with stevesxm. could be gears in the drive too but that sounds more like chewing gravel. u-joint is more likely and much easier to fix.

Yep, U-joint went and put a cut in the drive bellows for you. Don't try to run it anymore like this unless you want it to end up on the bottom. Do you pull the drive regularly to lube/inspect the u-joints? Did it by chance start doing this shortly after you had the drive elevated?

So today I hooked up the earmuffs and gave it a go. No matter the throttle speed in idle I don't get any problems. Then I gave it a bit of gas in drive and got a bit of the vibration. Tried it in reverse and I got a pretty loud clanging sound. Definetly the worst in reverse but I never got it above about 1400 rpms. Seems like the sound is coming from close to the prop. Motor sounds great though. Also, if you look down the transom behind the motor there is a shaft with a grease zerk. Directly below that is where the water is coming in. Trim gauge is not working either but I did get the stereo fixed!

pull the drive it only takes about 15-20minutes and a buddy check the u-joints and bellows

U joint and cracked Bellow is my guess also.

Well, I dropped it off today. Guessing I'm about to get raped in a week or so.

Sounds like a bellows leak that took out the gimbal to me..