1985 Mercury 50 hp idle problems

[gpfishingdude]

I had problems with the idle being too high and adjusted it down and adjusted the throttle cable to hold it against the stop. Then when I got it on the water it stalled at idle from being too low. So I adjusted it a little faster but it still stalled. Now I'm going to see if it will idle at spec.- 800 rpm in the water 900 on the muffs. If I still have problems I'm figuring it might be an electrical problem like maybe spark jumping to ground or something. Ought to know tomorrow if it quits raining so I can get out and work on it. I got ahold of a dwell/tach. today to check it with. It does start easily enough and runs pretty good when I give it some throttle.

 

[gpfishingdude]

Re: 1985 Mercury 50 hp idle problems

I started it this evening and ran it fast enough for a while to keep it from dying until it warmed up. Then when I dropped it in neutral and it died I figured that maybe it wasn't sucking enough gas. I started it and squeezed the bulb and the more I squeezed it the faster it ran. After it ran for awhile I dropped it in neutral and went back to look at the tach. The tach wasn't reading so I reclamped it to the plug wire several times and tried different wires. I didn't get a jolt while doing this so I figure the plug wires are good. Then I noticed the ground wire for the tach wasn't hooked up and when I clamped it to ground the needle started bouncing between 500 and 800. I figure it is averaging about 700 and hits 800 enough to try it in the water again. It sure sounds like it wants to run now.