[David R]

I've a 1988 70HP Mercury that requires a little extra rpms when starting from cold. Now I know to keep the rpms below 2500. The rest of my family and particularly my niece, aren't very mechanically savyy. The controls for this motor have the separate cold idle lever or warm-up lever. The movement of the lever allows revs of probably more than 5000.The manual doesn't discribe a setup for this part of the controls. Is there away to limit the neutral rpms?

[skier]

Sorry, I had one of those controls and had the same problem and I have not found a way to limit the RPM's. Mine wouldn't go above 3500. All that lever really does is advance the timing, and the fact that your timing is not controled by a distributer, I doubt that there is any way to limit it.Sorry.Craig

[hondon]

No way that I know of to limit the travel of that warm up lever.Problem is that sometimes you need that extra travel in a flooded or extreme cold start situation.Try talking very patiently with yor neice and express to her how much you love, her and the time you spend on the water with her,then share with her the way you would like YOUR engine to be started and why it should be started that way.Remember that each freewheel situation could be denying you time later on down the road.

[David R]

Thanks for the replies guys. I also talked with the marina mechanic yesterday, and he said the same thing. I might open the control box and see if a mechanical stop can be added. There is a lot of movement in the lever before anything happens, which makes it that much harder to use. It would be nice to say "don't lift the lever more than thickness of your thumb" or something like that. As it is, its like 2 1/2 inches.BestDavid