I have a 72 Mercruiser 888 (Ford 302) with - I think - a model 1 outdrive (single gear oil fill, not two separate chambers). the boat has been out of the water for two years. Prepping on the trailer with a water muff on the IO, the engine started and ran great, but the gear shift seems very noisy shifting into both fwd and reverse. Once in gear, it sounds fine. The noise is mechanical - gears crashing into each other, and makes me cringe! The only way to get it to run in reverse is to walk the shift lever very slowly (too slowly for practical docking) back til it engages. Otherwise the engine just stalls out. It''s a two lever system (separate throttle and shifters) and idles about 800 rpm. Adjusting the rpm up or down a couple of hundred rpm doesn't seem to change the problem. I was concerned about having it operating out of the water, so I did not want to run it more than a couple of minutes, especially in gear. Any ideas?