Hi I bought a 1988 mercury 135 black max to replace the 90 on my 17.5 robalo. The 90 was great and never missed a beat but it did not have the power this boat needed. The 135 was in my budget and ran good on the bench. The motor came from a marine mechanic locally. We had a few carb issues at first but after three returns to the mechanic we finally got it back working properly. We spent @ 3 hours running the boat making sure everything checked out and it did. The next time out the motor was very hard to start but finally did. Seemed to be running on only a few cyls. Thought it may be a fuel issue and might clear up. After a few mins of that motor finally came to life and ran good again. Ran for an hour or so and I shut down. When I tried to start again same thing. Brought home and put on the lift. Did some research here and found cdielectronics troubleshooting guide(great info). Pulled the covers off yesterday and found a screw loose on the stator,wiring harness, and I think Idle stabilizer ground. Screw was very loose! Tightened screw and motor starts fine now. Problem is the motor bogging badly getting up on plane once on plane motor will only turn 4750 wot when it was turning 5750. Only had light enough to check resistance readings on motor. Everything looked ok except stator readings were a little low. Spec calls for 5-7k I got 4700 on Blue and Blue white and 72 on red and red white spec calls for 90-140. I need to know should I concentrate on the stator the guide says this could be the problem if motor wont get over 3 to 4k rpms. Thanks for your time.
