Reply To: New to AOMC with a 1963 mercury 200

[nicholas soper]

I took the old Starcraft and Mercury 200 out for it first lake run in at least 15 years tonight since the weather was pretty much ideal. 70 degrees and no wind. Its a pretty small “no wake” local lake so I kept things pretty slow since there were quite a few other boats around. I started with the fuel mixture screw at 1-1/4 turns out as Jayzon suggested. I couldn’t ever get the throttle to roll back to full stop idle without it dying. I tried adjusting the mixture screw CW a 1/4 turn to lean it and it dies at full idle. I tried to turn the mixture screw CCW a 1/4 turn to 1-1/2 turns out, enriching the mixture, and the same result. I wanted to do more testing, but with the cover off I was wrapping a wood handled starter rope around the tabs on the flywheel. Most of the time the knot would release and it would start pretty easily, but there was more than once when the knot didn’t release, and rope got wrapped back around the fly wheel as the engine tried to start. That seemed like it was getting kind of sketchy, so I just got it restarted and cruised around for a while.

Tell tale didn’t seem to be sending out much water, but the engine stayed cool. I kept reaching up and touching the upper cylinder when we were underway and it was only ever luke warm feeling. So that’s a good sign.

With the idle being so finicky, my fear that Jayzon is correct about needing to address the seals. I was really hoping it wouldn’t come to that.