have the motor and drive checked out by a profesional. I have made my career by working on I/O's. If i lived in a different area, thats what I would have. But given the area I run a boat in down here(hot, shallow, salt water) an Outboard works better. An I/O can be a nice set up, but they do have more things that can go wrong, and are generally more labor intensive. You don't get the option of a four bolt tune up(replacing the entire outboard engine) with an I/O. Things like bellows, shift cables, gimabl bearings, u-joints, upper and lower gear case can get expensive. Recently, there have been some lower cost alternatives for outdrive replacemnt that make rebuilding an older drive no longer cost efficient. Just have the boat checked out to avoid any hidden issues. You will need to find someone that is well versed in Mercruiser to check it out.
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