Looked at a '72 Mercury 7.5 and have questions!

First off, I know very little about outboards, so bear with me. I looked at a Mercury 7.5 for a kicker. Visual inspection looked good. Everything was clean, wiring in good shape, overall condition good for the year etc. Nothing stood out yet. Pulled it thru a few times, and compression seemed good. Fired right up first pull and let it idle for 20-30 seconds and put it in gear and it quit. Fired right up again, put it gear and it quit again. Now the seller is telling me the engine is just cold and needs to warm up. Let it run for a couple of minutes and put it in gear and now stays running. Is this normal?

Second thing I notice is it doesn't idle very smoothly, seems to really be bouncing around but both cylinders are firing when I pulled the plug wires. Then I see the gas leaking out of the front of the carb. After some discussion, the seller shows me paperwork from the marina where they had it serviced last fall. Work included a tune up with carb work (overhaul/cleaning) gear oil changed and a new impeller all to the tune of $500.

Not being familar with 2 cycle carbs what am I looking at to fix this leak? Cost to fix? And is the shaking/vibrating at idle anything to be concerned about?

Re: Looked at a '72 Mercury 7.5 and have questions!

The inlet needle on the carb is leaking and someone leaned the idle mixture out to try and make it run that's why the carb is lean at idle or as the owner says cold blooded

Re: Looked at a '72 Mercury 7.5 and have questions!

Not being familar with 2 cycle carbs what am I looking at to fix this leak? Cost to fix? And is the shaking/vibrating at idle anything to be concerned about?

Click to expand...

Ayuh,.... Probably just the float needle stuck in the carb,... just count on rebuildin' it again, yerself...

The Idle issue is no doubt related to the carb problem, probably runnin' rich, or misadjusted,...

if yer reasonably Handy, it's all doable...

Re: Looked at a '72 Mercury 7.5 and have questions!

Ok, thanks guys for the quick replys. The guy was asking $400 for the motor which after some google searching seems to be in the ball park. Now after talking to this guy for quite awhile, he is willing to trade even for an old electric downrigger I have. I just didn't want to be out a downrigger and have a worthless motor on my hands.