Re: Mercury Mark 5, first run, first problem

[20mercman]

quote Buccaneer:

Steve, I too am learning that these Mercs can be frustrating!
Could you have shortened the tang on the neutral spring
to make it work instead of reusing the deformed one?
I messed around with mine half the day. The determination was
that the prop “was” slipping, and that the neutral spring “was not”
releasing! I took the gear case off (but was able to leave the “shoe piece”
and water pump in place!) and put the stub drive shaft in the vice
and was able to slip the prop fairly easy. Ended up making a shim
out of aluminum flashing and put it under the prop nut cone spring.
It would still slip, but with much more effort. While the gear case was
off I played with the shift cable while watching the neutral spring
and the finger that’s suppose to catch said spring…. it was not engaging.
The only way I could get it to do so was remove the plug from the shoe
and push the cable (and catch finger) up further and tighten the cable
up on the top side.

I can now run wide open with no prop slippage and I have neutral (just barely),
but can’t seem to get the shift handle adjusted within the service bulletin
specs.
Perhaps I need a new spring with a longer tang!!! 🙁

It idles beautifully and most times sounds good wide open, but it did load
up a couple of times.
Murphy’s law says all the exhaust must blow the wrong direction, so
perhaps it was lacking proper oxygen to run correctly at times.
I’m thinking my 16:1 fuel mixture might have been a little rich as well.
Oh well, there’s hope for it!

I was very seriously considering filing down the tang on the new spring, but after I was able to restore to original one, (it really came back to original looking condition,) I figured I would give it a try. It worked, so I didn’t need the other one. I had a call from Marineengine.com about another part, and I mentioned the spring. They offered to take it back, so I sent it back to them.

As for 16:1, yes, that is really way too much oil for these. I have found that anything richer than 24:1 is way too much. These don’t need all that oil, and I have found they don’t like it. I run all my regular service Mercs, (not during break-in) at 48:1 unless I have some richer gas mix to use up.

Steve