Mercruiser sterndrive 888 clunk in reverse

Just got my boat out of the shop today to have new gimble bearings, shift cable, bellows, new water pump and housing, changed oil on outdrive, u joints - they said were fine. I get it home, put outdrive down, connected the water hose so I could test it, started it up, warmed it up, put it in forward, worked fine, then put in reverse and I heard some sort of clunking at idle. I could feel this in the fiberglass as I was sitting in the boat. What could this be? Just had the whole thing serviced, was running great before this. could it be bad alignment of the splines between the motor and outdrive? Almost sounds like something is loose in there, jerking and clunking back and forth,
Any comments would be appreciated.

Re: Mercruiser sterndrive 888 clunk in reverse

Do'nt flip out just yet. You are operating this thing on the flusher which is the furthest thing from the real world.See how it acts in the water and if you are still not happy take it back to that dealer for a little further tweaking but keep in mind you might be told you will need a shift spool and this is a unit 30+ years old.