Intermediate shaft bearings????

New to the forum and need help please!!!

After a long extensive face lift on my 85 Baja, I attempted to finally get it on the water labor day weekend 2015. We left the dock and 10mins or so into the ride the bow came up, the engine started racing and there seemed to be nothing at the out drive, I shut the boat down and was towed back to the dock, took the boat home. A couple days later, disgusted with the past weekend adventure, I started the boat up (which I couldn't get to happen on the river) and ran it through the gears. Everything seemed to be operating just fine however, I could hear a slight roar/ grinding noise coming from the rear of the engine area or intermediate housing area. My question is this....what could have caused the outdrive to just seem to kick out of gear and cause the engine to race and not go anywhere, then not be able to restart? And then a couple days later pop off on the third crank and everything seem to work other than the slight grinding noise ( I assume is a bearing)?

Thanks in advance for any help to locate this problem!

Pull the shaft and inspect the splines on the end of the shaft.--------Perhaps splines in coupling let go.

ok I will check that......thank you Racer

hey racerone...... I have finally been able to get to work on this intermediate shaft and found the splines to be in great condition I have found however that the ball gears are worn more than I realized, and the bearings looked good too! Do you think that could be the problem?