Reply To: “BRAND NEW” 1986 Mercury 4 HP ?????

[Harmattan1]

After reading your response here, I went out and took the cowl off again. As my suspicions confirmed, all the lines are very pliable and feel brand new, no brittleness at all. They retain their ‘rubbery’ feel, though brand new. The wires, rubber hoses, everthing under the cowl looks great and it seems as though I could run the motor no problem. One gentleman suggested keeping it untouched. Its very tempting to do that as I know I will never find one like this ever again(Never say never,right?). It seems highly unlikely for sure. Im not sure what my purpose would be to keep it that way unless it would be displayed for others to see in the future. Everytime I walk past it in the garage now, I want to go find a 55 gallon drum, fill it with water, and just turn it on just to see it run. I dont have a boat right now, I had actually planned on using it when I go fishing/renting a john boat until I get or build my own. I dont want to take the lower unit off if at all possible as I have never worked on anything other than my older 55 Johnson 5.5 which I have just began working on. I havent even gotten to the lower unit on that one yet so I have no experience working on outboards per se. I would need to find good instructions if I were to change the impeller. It is probably easier than I think, but when you have never done it, it is what it is, an unknown. Perhaps, there might be someone here on the sight who has experience working on the smaller Mercs who could walk me through it easy or point me in the right direction. Thanks for the input.