Oh, please let there be a Mercury guru online who read this!

I have a pair of Mercury 50 Hp outboards on a houseboat. These are
relatively new, model year 2000, first sold in 2002, and only have 35 hours
on them.

They run awful!

I believe that the carburetors had gas left in the motors that went bad.
The end result is that neither motor will throttle up reliably. They start
OK, and if I can them up above 2000 RPM they run strong and steady. Getting
them to rev up is the problem, and they just won't run at 1800 RPM no matter
what.

I had a certified Mercury mechanic come out and look at the motors today.
He brought some test equipment that was essentially a four channel vacuum
meter that he connected up to test ports on the engine. With this he was
able to adjust the throttle linkage, idle speed, and idle mixtures so that
all four cylinders were in sync and pulling their weight.

It didn't help.

He said, and I had pretty much assumed, that the low speed circuits in the
carbs were probably clogged.

Now here is the clincher: He said that this was an "EPA" motor and they are
NOT allowed to rebuild them! That Mercury does not even sell rebuild kits
for them. I have to buy a new carburetor assembly (four carburetors, one
for each cylinder).

Can this be right? Do you really have to buy a new carburetor instead of
cleaning the old one?

Come on, Joe, say it ain't so!

Rod McInnis

P.S. he hasn't quoted me a price yet. Can anyone tell me what a reasonable
price would be?

I'm not a merc mechanic but I've worked on a lot of small motors. If the
carbs are still in good shape you can disassemble them and clean the
passages with wire drills. Be careful to not use a drill size that is
bigger that the original passageway. If you are careful the gaskets should
be ok. I have seen that problem before with small carbs, the gas evaporates
and leaves deposits in passageways narrowing them. Then you can't get the
mixture right. Most of the 'epa' carbs have no mixture adjustments.

"Rod McInnis" wrote in message
...

Oh, please let there be a Mercury guru online who read this!

I have a pair of Mercury 50 Hp outboards on a houseboat. These are
relatively new, model year 2000, first sold in 2002, and only have 35
hours
on them.

They run awful!

I believe that the carburetors had gas left in the motors that went bad.
The end result is that neither motor will throttle up reliably. They
start
OK, and if I can them up above 2000 RPM they run strong and steady.
Getting
them to rev up is the problem, and they just won't run at 1800 RPM no
matter
what.

I had a certified Mercury mechanic come out and look at the motors today.
He brought some test equipment that was essentially a four channel vacuum
meter that he connected up to test ports on the engine. With this he was
able to adjust the throttle linkage, idle speed, and idle mixtures so that
all four cylinders were in sync and pulling their weight.

It didn't help.

He said, and I had pretty much assumed, that the low speed circuits in the
carbs were probably clogged.

Now here is the clincher: He said that this was an "EPA" motor and they
are
NOT allowed to rebuild them! That Mercury does not even sell rebuild kits
for them. I have to buy a new carburetor assembly (four carburetors, one
for each cylinder).

Can this be right? Do you really have to buy a new carburetor instead of
cleaning the old one?

Come on, Joe, say it ain't so!

Rod McInnis

P.S. he hasn't quoted me a price yet. Can anyone tell me what a
reasonable
price would be?

If you are in the SF Bay area as I think you are. You might try a couple of
the Carb shops. I used one in Concord near Park and shop center. If you
want to clean them yourself, I have a can of carb soaker you can use.
Bill

"Rod McInnis" wrote in message
...

Oh, please let there be a Mercury guru online who read this!

I have a pair of Mercury 50 Hp outboards on a houseboat. These are
relatively new, model year 2000, first sold in 2002, and only have 35
hours
on them.

They run awful!

I believe that the carburetors had gas left in the motors that went bad.
The end result is that neither motor will throttle up reliably. They
start
OK, and if I can them up above 2000 RPM they run strong and steady.
Getting
them to rev up is the problem, and they just won't run at 1800 RPM no
matter
what.

I had a certified Mercury mechanic come out and look at the motors today.
He brought some test equipment that was essentially a four channel vacuum
meter that he connected up to test ports on the engine. With this he was
able to adjust the throttle linkage, idle speed, and idle mixtures so that
all four cylinders were in sync and pulling their weight.

It didn't help.

He said, and I had pretty much assumed, that the low speed circuits in the
carbs were probably clogged.

Now here is the clincher: He said that this was an "EPA" motor and they
are
NOT allowed to rebuild them! That Mercury does not even sell rebuild kits
for them. I have to buy a new carburetor assembly (four carburetors, one
for each cylinder).

Can this be right? Do you really have to buy a new carburetor instead of
cleaning the old one?

Come on, Joe, say it ain't so!

Rod McInnis

P.S. he hasn't quoted me a price yet. Can anyone tell me what a
reasonable
price would be?

On Wed, 3 Mar 2004 17:45:54 -0800, "Rod McInnis"
wrote:


Oh, please let there be a Mercury guru online who read this!

I have a pair of Mercury 50 Hp outboards on a houseboat. These are
relatively new, model year 2000, first sold in 2002, and only have 35 hours
on them.

They run awful!

I belive, and I may be wrong, that the 2000 50 Mercs had a recall on
certain motors for just this problem.

Tell your certified mechanic to look that up and see if the serial
numbers match the recall.

Later,

Tom
S. Woodstock, CT
-----------
"Do fishermen eat avocados? This is a question
that no one ever thinks to ask."

Russel Chatham, "Dark Waters" (1988)

"Lawrence James" wrote in message
hlink.net...
If the
carbs are still in good shape you can disassemble them and clean the
passages with wire drills.

I have taken apart and cleaned a number of carburetors. I must admit,
however, that carburetors and I don't get along. A pre-smog carb is Ok. A
later model and I tend to end up with a pile of parts that I can't find a
place for.

I have the can of carburetor cleaner, but my wife hates it when I do
anything with that because it ends up stinking up the whole house for days.
I just finished rebuilding a carburetor for a 1925 Model T! There was only
a handful of parts to the whole carb, so that wasn't much of a problem.

The carburetor for the ski boat I took to carburetor repair shop and paid
them to rebuild it. A Holley double pumper 4 barrel. They do great on
things like that. When I broght them the carburetor for my Onan generator
they just shook their heads and said they couldn't help me. It wasn't that
the carb was complicated it was an issue of getting parts. I finally found
a source of parts and rebuilt that one myself.


If you are careful the gaskets should be ok.

Paper gaskets might be okay, and I could always cut new ones if they aren't
too delicate. It is the rubber diaphragms that can tear and leave you with
nothing that concerns me.

Most of the 'epa' carbs have no mixture adjustments.

The Mercury carbs had brass plugs inserted over the idle mixture adjustment
screws. The mechanic drilled out the plugs and then the standard adjustment
screws were accessible. He was supposed to re-plug the holes, but since
this issue hasn't been resolved yet he left them open.

If the carburetor was really meant to not be rebuildable then it is possible
(even likely) that the carburetor won't come apart in a way that will allow
it to go back together.

A big issue here is that the motors are bolted to the back of the pontoons
of the houseboat. If you drop a screw, bolt, washer, clip, etc. it ends up
either down in the lower unit or overboard. Yeah, I can stuff rags in the
cowling to keep stuff from going down, and maybe fabricate a "bib" of some
sort to catch other parts, but it is still going to be a major hassle. There
is so much linkage and "stuff" involved with getting the carburetors off
that I doubt I would be successful doing it with the boat in the water.
It's going to cost me ~$600 to have the boat hauled out, so I want to be
sure that I have my ducks in a row when I do this so I don't have to do it
multiple times.


Rod McInnis

at Iboats.com they have message boards
for different outboards with lots of folks
willing to help you out. A few folks
there helped get my 1972 Merc running
great.