Ok,
Well I'm going to post this one on here for the benefit of the next guy who like me just refused to buy a new motor for that old boat. The project in question is a 1983 two stroke 4 cylinder Mercury. All of the electrics were shot, I had to replace the starter, switchbox, and trigger. Cleaned the plugs, and then it was time to do the carbs. I ordered two carbs kits (NOS) that were of the appropriate part number according to Merc. Apparently on the early model of these carbs, the main jets (the one in the center) were pressed in. After using an easy out and a pair of vice grips I was able to remove the old ones. I tried a wooden dowell via the throat first, no dice. So in order to use the new mains included in the kit you have to use a tap to put threads in the body of the carb. Don't go too far, you have to put just enough threads in there to just seat the plastic venturi in the throat. The tap size is a 1/4 - 32. The reason that I had to do this in the first place was that one of the passages that lead to that center jet was so clogged that even after sitting in carb cleaner for 24 hours, it still wouldn't come clean. I had to physically remove some kind of detritus from that center main after pulling out the pressed in center jet. Anyway, after a reassemble it starts and idles like new.
Well I'm going to post this one on here for the benefit of the next guy who like me just refused to buy a new motor for that old boat. The project in question is a 1983 two stroke 4 cylinder Mercury. All of the electrics were shot, I had to replace the starter, switchbox, and trigger. Cleaned the plugs, and then it was time to do the carbs. I ordered two carbs kits (NOS) that were of the appropriate part number according to Merc. Apparently on the early model of these carbs, the main jets (the one in the center) were pressed in. After using an easy out and a pair of vice grips I was able to remove the old ones. I tried a wooden dowell via the throat first, no dice. So in order to use the new mains included in the kit you have to use a tap to put threads in the body of the carb. Don't go too far, you have to put just enough threads in there to just seat the plastic venturi in the throat. The tap size is a 1/4 - 32. The reason that I had to do this in the first place was that one of the passages that lead to that center jet was so clogged that even after sitting in carb cleaner for 24 hours, it still wouldn't come clean. I had to physically remove some kind of detritus from that center main after pulling out the pressed in center jet. Anyway, after a reassemble it starts and idles like new.
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