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thanks for bearing with me, I'm a new boat owner and still trying to find my way around the engine. I guess it would be the crank shaft. When I raise the engine and look directly under the powerhead there is an opening where I can see the shaft spinning into the lower unit. That's where I was getting the intermittent squeaking at medium range rpms. It seems to come and go with no reason. I said in my past post that the performance has not been affected. Other people have said to spray some sort of lube in there and that the sound should go away so I figured I would try that before bringing it into the shop during the middle of summer considering we lost the whole month of June to rain here in the northeast. BTW, this has been a great site, thanks for the help