1965 650, no power and slow as throttle advanced

I have a 1965 (some web sites say 1966, ser # 1869630) 650, 4 cylinder.
Picked this up a short while ago and finally got it into the water.
Not the quickest starter, but eventually gets running. Good power and snappy acceleration in reverse. Throttle full open forward yields poor results, slow and sluggish, half throttle is a nice idle, putting along, occasionally missing, sometimes quitting.

Sorry, no tach installed, no speedometer so I can?t give a specific reference.

Looking for ideas as to where to start. Fuel mixture, cable adjustment, or timing? The magneto does not seem to be moving (advancing?) when the throttle is advanced in forward, but does move when in reverse and as the throttle is increased. Since it runs better in reverse I do not suspect broken wires or bad plugs.
I should have posted a video of it running.....
Any help is appreciated.
AK

Re: 1965 650, no power and slow as throttle advanced

wierd, When you move that throttle arm on the block if the links are all connected, it kind of has to move the magneto to advance. On my 650's it is kind of a sping loaded connection and if the hoses and wires to the distributor were too tight it might keep it from moving to full advance. Also there are grease fittings on that baby to keep it pivoting freely. have you greased it?

The old guys here will tell you the first thing you need to do is get a manual and then do the timing and Link and Sync procedure.

You sure you do not have throttle and shift cables reversed somehow or some other wierdness? you have the right mercury control levers right?

Re: 1965 650, no power and slow as throttle advanced

Yachtzee - thanks for the quick reply - I thought I was goping to get an email when someone responded so I was oblivious to your help until tonight.
Okay - here is what I found: I got brave (by the way, do have a manual) and decided to remove the distributor to see what was happening.
To make a long boring story short, cleaned up the contacts on the cap, rotor and spring contact. They had become "oxidized", probably the wrong word but you get my drift, made them shiny.
Set the points, they didn't look like they were opening. (filed/sanded them only slightly).
Put it all back together and it fired up like gang busters. But Huge RPM.
Had to look for the high rpm problem, then it hit me. The thing was probably progressively running worse and worse so the previous owner kept turning up the idle screw to get it going.
Since I really had no refrence as to what it was supposed to look like, I just backed the thing off completely.
Now it starts right off, idle sounds normal, aceleration sounds normal.
We are going to put it back into the water this weekend to see if anything else is an issue.
By the way - it was trimmed WAY up to boot. I put it back down on the bottom which created that little oil leak......
Thanks for your input -

Re: 1965 650, no power and slow as throttle advanced

Yachtzee - by the way - did all the things you suggested in the process of trying to find the problem - except grease the distributor, which was missing a fitting -
Will get the greased before it hits the water.
And they are Mercury controls
Thanks again
AK