'76 Thunderbolt 850 problems...

Recently picked up a boat with a '76 Merc, the SN is 4537364.

Hasn't ran in 2+ years. Put in new fuel and fuel pump, new water pump, and reapaired a bunch of jacked up wiring. It now runs, but it's rough. Probably needs carbs gone through. But the main issue I need help with is when idling I can occasionally hear a click click click, like the sound of spark arcing to ground. The motor shutters when I hear this.

I have ran it at night and cannot see spark jumping from any of the coils or wires. It sounds like it might be coming from the top of the motor, so chasing some ratty wires anyway we pulled the flywheel. Repaired the wiring and it still does this. Further inspection of the stator / flywheel looks like the stator is quite new, much newer than everything around it. And it looks like the stator and flywheel are making contact.






Would this cause the issue I have described? What should I do from here?
Thanks

Re: '76 Thunderbolt 850 problems...

Seeing that you removed the flywheel by taking the 8 bolts out could be why the flywheel and stator are hitting. If you did not mark the position of the flywheel and the center hub they could be off and this will also mess up the timing marks and the TDC of the #1 piston. You can bring the #1 piston to TDC and place the flywheel with the timing mark at 0 and see if this helps. Otherwise see if you can match up the paint marks on the inside of the flywheel with ones on the hub to see if it helps. ALWAYS mark the hub and flywheel before taking them apart as you have done. JMO
Oldman570

Re: '76 Thunderbolt 850 problems...

oldman570 said:

Seeing that you removed the flywheel by taking the 8 bolts out could be why the flywheel and stator are hitting. If you did not mark the position of the flywheel and the center hub they could be off and this will also mess up the timing marks and the TDC of the #1 piston. You can bring the #1 piston to TDC and place the flywheel with the timing mark at 0 and see if this helps. Otherwise see if you can match up the paint marks on the inside of the flywheel with ones on the hub to see if it helps. ALWAYS mark the hub and flywheel before taking them apart as you have done. JMO
Oldman570

Click to expand...

Yeah, we set it to TDC before we pulled it.

Re: '76 Thunderbolt 850 problems...

Have you verified the stator is the correct part?
If you don't see any visible warps or bends, maybe you'll just need to lightly sand stuff?

With my motor, I do hear the clicks as it's running, but I'm 90% positive it's the distributor working... (the two motors are pretty similar)

Re: '76 Thunderbolt 850 problems...

No distributor on this motor. That's my plan at this point is to just sand it down some and try it again. Just hoping maybe someone on here has seen this issue before.

Re: '76 Thunderbolt 850 problems...

Hmm, assuming it is the stator and you don't see anything off center or warped etc, have you inspected the drive shaft? (bent? :/ )