Mercury 150 XR6 Hard Starting in morning

I have a 1991 150 XR6 that has a real hard time starting in the moring. After it starts in the morn it will start all day with no problems at all even if it is cold when fishing. I ran carb cleaner in the gas and cleaned out the carbs. Can anyone give me any other ideas. I am thinking of putting a electric fuel pump on it to solve this problem. Dont seem like it is getting fuel in the morn. Ideas appreciated. Thanks

Re: Mercury 150 XR6 Hard Starting in morning

Son just bought a '95 150. Previous owner took us for a test drive before the sale. He said he engine was hard to start (initially like yours). I watched his procedure and it was a mess......no wonder he was having problems.

We bought the rig. We have had zero problems starting the engine. Here's the procedure:

1. Ran a 16 oz can of Sea Foam thru the engine in 10 gallons of gas running for as long as it took to consume it on one outing; lots of WOT and pausing and accelerating from a stop and all that. Never stopped the engine till we were through with that conditioning.

Then didn't try to start it for several days. (This had nothing to do with it, just couldn't schedule it in.) Then.............
2. Set the engine level
3. Squeezed the bulb till firm
4. Advance the fast idle as far up as it will go. Keep hand on lever for what is about to happen.
5. Turn the key to RUN, push in and hold for 20 to 30 seconds.
6. Crank engine. (Never took more than 15 seconds of cranking.)
7. Engine lights off and wants to go to full rpm.....but don't let it; just cut the throttle back (fast idle) to keep it around 1500 to 2500....2000 desired speed.
8. Let it run like that for a bit depending on ambient temp. A couple of minutes on a cold day works.....gives you time to look things over, check for the pee tell tale and all.

If engine staggers or coughs and starts to die, just push in the key (RUN position) and hold till it recovers (more priming) and let go when it does....usually won't take more than twice on a really cold day.

9. Cut the fast idle all the way back (engine at idle) and go about your business.

If it doesn't want to catch initially after step 5, repeat steps 3 and 5.

That might work for you. Does for us.

HTH

Mark

Re: Mercury 150 XR6 Hard Starting in morning

Good morning

I have a pair of Mercury 175s, 1992 vintage, periodically I have had a hard time with the first start of the morning, especially the starborad engine. When it finally did start, it would put up a huge blue smoke cloud. I even had the fire department called on me once because somebody thought my boat was on fire ! After much checking things out, I came to the conclusion that the auto oil injection system was filling the fuel line and carbs with oil when I left the engines tipped up out of the water overnight. I tried to fix all the components of the oil injection system to fix the problem, but no luck. I removed the oil injection system and went premix and have never had the hard start problem since.
Several times I left the motors down, carbs level, and the hard start problem would not happen. When I left the motors tilted up overnight, they would be hard to start the next day. By the way, even thought they were hard to start sometimes, these motors never failed me by not starting. Anyway, I suggest you check to see if your oil system is the culprit in this problem.