1997 Mercury 150 - Lost power(horsepower not electrical)

macdon

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Joined
Feb 13, 2006
Messages
3
I'm cruising along this past Sunday on the local river, after just leaving the a sandbar visiting with a couple friends(was there about 10 minutes). Before that, I had just launched the boat and cruised up to the sandbar.

As I round a corner on the river, I lose all top end horsepower down and am limited to 2000RPM. I didn't hear a bang, boom, short, nothing.

I take it to a marine shop Monday morning, today I call back to see what they have found. They did:

Water-in-Fuel test: Came back fine (I run a little Sea-Foam in every tank of gas to prevent the simple things)
Compression Check: All came back within normal ranges

They then dropped the lower unit and said it was full of water and that I would need to get an entire new lower unit. They won't rebuild and I'll have to buy a new one. Estimated the cost at $2000

I asked them to do a check on the Hi side of the stator and he said he did and all the electrical came back normal and the lower unit needed to be replaced before they could do anything else.

My questions to all of you out there...If the lower unit is bad, would it cause me to stay limited between 2000-2500rpm regardless or would it just seize up?

I'm thinking about just paying them for the work they did and take it to a different place that will rebuild it for less money and find out the real issue.

Thoughts??

Thank you in Advance!
 

macdon

Recruit
Joined
Feb 13, 2006
Messages
3
Re: 1997 Mercury 150 - Lost power(horsepower not electrical)

Well guys, I replaced the lower unit(which was bad and could definitely tell I needed to get a new one) but it didn't fix the problem. I ended up taking it to a different shop and they found that the float seat became unscrewed and was causing the needle to stay closed on the top carb. Hopefully this will help people in the future. Thanks~
 
Joined
Apr 24, 2012
Messages
18
Re: 1997 Mercury 150 - Lost power(horsepower not electrical)

oh, wow. I'm glad that your boat is fixed, thanks for sharing. I'm really sorry to hear about that 1st shop though. Ugh.
 
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