[bpearce]

My 2000 Mercury 8HP has very few hours on it. It has not been run much since last winter. I have cleaned the fuel filter and verified gas is going into the carburator; made sure I have fresh fuel; spark plugs look good; unscrewed the nut under the blue primer button and clean fuel came out; it was running for a few minutes last week but now it will not start. Can somebody give me some direction? Thanks

[Wee Hooker]

Funny, I have similar issues with a 99' 8hp Mariner right now. Here's what I did to isolate. First, get a (new or well cleaned) spray bottle ( like houshold cleaners come in) and add some fresh 50:1 fuel mix in it. Open the throttle body butterfly by rotating the cam on the left of the carb and spay a few shots right down the thoat. Now give it a pull. If is starts and runs a few seconds, you have a fuel/carb issue. If it starts and stalls, try squeezing the ball on the fuel line to see if forceing it fuel helps. If not, go to an auto parts store and get a inline spark tester for $5. Put it on one cyl, pull the cord and see if you get spark. Then try the next. If you don't see consistant spark on both cyl, you have an electrical issue.
FWIW, mine is a fuel issue and I'm going to clean and rebuild the carb and fuel pump.
hth

[bpearce]

Thanks Wee Hooker. Do you know how to clean and rebuild the carb?

[Wee Hooker]

Not well enough to explain here. As a rule of thumb, I take lots of close up digital pics as I tear everything down so I can see how it goes back togeather. I also segrigate parts , bolts etc into (labled) zip lock bags to keep order to reasembly. Then soak everything in carb cleaner for 2 days, then reasemble with new gaskets , needle valve, etc. A shop/repair manual helps allot with pics and float level specs but some of that might be here as well.
It's not hard if you just take your time .
hth