My fiance's father gave us a boat he had sitting in his backyard for about 3 years. It has a merc 140 outboard that I just got started for the first time today. Everything I read in the manual said I should see water coming from the "tell-tale" holes. I'm running it out of water with a hose thing (has two rubber cups). I turn the water on enough that there is water squirting out the sides of the cups, but not full blast. When I started it the first time, water stops squirting out the cups, but no water was coming out the tell-tale holes so I shut it off.<br /><br />I called her dad and he said it had been too long and wasn't sure, but that maybe it sat too long and water needed to fill all the passage ways. So I tried again and let it run for about 15 seconds, still no water so I tried to give it some throttle (till about 3500 rpm) and then I saw water start to spray out the tell-tale holes. I brought it back to idle and almost no water out the tale-tell holes.<br /><br />So my question is, just how much water should be coming out? On the front of my service manual, it shows a boat with a 150 going pretty fast and I can see a small stream of water coming out the tale-tell holes. Its not a jet stream of water or anything, but more than I saw on my engine.<br /><br />Thanks for any help!!