I checked my prop today and noticed that I have a little play in my shaft. Nut is tight but you can feel play back and forth with the shaft. any Ideals

What yr & model motor? When was the last time lower unit wss serviced? Water pump replaced? Some may have a small (.002-.005) amount of play. Thats called "thrust play". It may be getting close to time to pull that one apart & inspect it for wear, reseal, rebuild. Thrust washers & spacers/shims do wear out. Youll be FAR ahead by doing it now instead of waiting for seal failure or total lower unit failure if a seal fails allowing water in. Check your LU oil, make sure no water is in it. It should be changed every year or 50 hrs whichever comes first.

05 Yamaha 225 lower unit was rebuilt before I got the boat last year from F&S

There should be some slight back and forth movement of the shaft. Perfectly normal. If you've changed your Lower Unit oil and found no appreciable metal in the oil you should be good to go.

still have to do that. I will look for any metal in oil when I change it. Thanks for the info my late boat had a 1983 mercury on it and it didn't move.

Check your drain plug for carbon steal shavings, it has a magnet on it, to much bearing play on the prop shaft useally indicates to much bearing wear and you may have a bad shim or need to add some shims, or a bearing at the point of failure, if you can do the work yourself great, but if its not your thing don't take the upper drain plug out and let all the gear oil drain, just take the bottom out and look at the magnet for iron, the gear oil tell the service guy a lot of what it is not doing on the inside or it is doing

Make sure the play isn't a loose prop on the shaft as well.

the shaft is the only thing that is moving.

OK I went to change to oil today and it was empty. there was no oil in the lower unit. how bad would it be inside? I think I need to change out the bearings. I went ahead and put oil in it and it sounds better just be spinning it. I would have never thought that I would have had to check it when buying it from a dealer. don't put a lot of hours on the motor in a year the biggest part of the time is for high school tourneys and we have one Saturday. any info would be great

it needs to be opened up & inspected by someone that knows what they're doing.
Seriously? No oil at all??? Geez Louise.

Got it apart now and the top bearing for shaft to motor eat up got it get some print and gaskets but everything else look and feels good just need a good clean put new parts in and good to go

Okay. When you say you had NO oil, is it because someone didnt put oil in it when you bought it & it was completely DRY? or do you mean you drained nothing but water out of it? Im sorry but im not understanding what you mean by no oil in it.
If it had nothing but water in it, you need to replace the prop seal, shift shaft seal, & drive shaft seal & possibly pinion gear & F&R gears & shafts. Im amazed it even ran 10 minutes without locking up ,with no oil in it. One of the seals HAD to fail to let water in & oil out. Then you need to pressure test it to make sure its sealed. Otherwise youre just going to wind up with same problem or total failure quickly. Honestly im surprised you didnt have a complete "come from together" failure if there was literally NO oil in it.

Yes no oil or water I was going to change my oil out like it do every year which would let me know if I have water getting in but there was nothing in it when I drained it I am replacing all seals and doing a good cleaning I never saw any oil in the garage where it stored when not in use

Wow. Completely dry!! As i said, im surprised it even ran 5 minutes. You DODGED a bullet on that one!
You SHOULD contact F&S & let them know. I doubt theyll do anything(because of the elapsed time) but it's DEFINATELY something the Service Manager would want to be aware of. He can find out which of his mechanics checked that boat & had a brain fart.

I know just missing out on some of the best time to fish