Advance Timing Screw sealed with red wax on 75HP Mercury?

[meerkat]

Has anyone come across the advance timing screw on a 75 HP Mercury ELPTO being sealed with red wax?

I want to set the advance timing on my 1995 Mecury 75HP ELPTO. I have the official Mercury manual and it has pretty straight forward instructions for setting it to 20 degrees BTDC (cranking speed). My problem is that when I hook up the timing light and check the advance timing (before I have changed anything) it is showing about 28 degrees BTDC BUT the screw for setting the timing has been sealed with red sealing wax!

Has anyone come across this before? I do not want to be running my motor with the timing 8 degrees too far advanced but I also am reluctant to mess with something that has been sealed for some reason before I know why.

 

[sschefer]

Re: Advance Timing Screw sealed with red wax on 75HP Mercury?

Its probably not wax, most likely it's red liquid tape and was put on there by the last person that tuned it. It's used instead of locktite to make sure the screw and locking nut doesn't vibrate lose. Make sure you're checking your timing correctly, follow the instrutions to the letter. If you still get 28 and the book is calling for 20 then set it to that and see how it runs. The way that engine is designed, 25 is the safe max given the dwell and I usually set them to 22 at 300 rpm.

 

[meerkat]

Re: Advance Timing Screw sealed with red wax on 75HP Mercury?

Thanks for the come-back. I don't know what liquid tape would look like but I do know what locktite looks like and to me it looked like wax but either way your input is helpful in terms of what to do next. Can you explain what you mean by "set them to 22 at 300 rpm"? The manual calls for setting the timing "at cranking speed" so do you mean setting it to 22 rpm at cranking speed because if I try to do this with the engine running, according to the manual the idle speed is supposed to be 750rpm and I am not going to get to 300rpm without the motor stalling.

 

[Faztbullet]

Re: Advance Timing Screw sealed with red wax on 75HP Mercury?

That is factory setting as most come with a orange or reddish sealer like loctite on them. It will crack and shatter if it has ever been adjusted before... my book shows timing sets at 28? at cranking which is 26? when running, the only engines with 20? is the Seapro and WorkXD and check you timing pointer before you adjust anything.

 

[sschefer]

Re: Advance Timing Screw sealed with red wax on 75HP Mercury?

That is factory setting as most come with a orange or reddish sealer like loctite on them. It will crack and shatter if it has ever been adjusted before... my book shows timing sets at 28? at cranking which is 26? when running, the only engines with 20? is the Seapro and WorkXD and check you timing pointer before you adjust anything.

Merkat, looks like you should just leave it alone. Normal cranking speed is right about 300 RPM.

 

[meerkat]

Re: Advance Timing Screw sealed with red wax on 75HP Mercury?

Fatzbullet, thanks for the come-back. I am reasonably handy with a wrench but new to outboards so I bought the "factory" manual because of discrepancies I saw in some of the after-market manuals. Now I am concerned that there may be other settings in my "factory" manual that may be wrong.

Can I ask you to double-check that advance timing for me? I double-checked it in my "Factory" Mercury Service Manual and it definitely says 20 degrees at cranking (18 degrees when running). Any idea why there would be this discrepancy? What manual would you recommend for these types of settings?

For the record it is a 1996 Mercury 75HP ELPTO serial # OG387452 model# 1075412SD (sorry I had 1995 in my original post).