C’mon, it’s an old Mercury! The shaft HAS to be rusty!!
I was thinking about it….I have to look into it more; but I don’t think they ever made a true 4 hp with conventional ignition. I think the last conventional ignition was on a 3.9. Also, if you say there is NO rust on the shaft, again, you are a lucky, lucky man; but I wonder whether the whole lower unit or shaft has been replaced with a stainless one, which was not originally how it was made. They didn’t have stainless shafts until 1976. If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the serial number? Do the saddle and power head serial numbers match?
Long live American manufacturing!
