1986 Merc 35 HP idle/throttle issues

[aMeyers11]

Hi everyone, I finally got my motor running. It surprisingly runs very well aside from some throttle issues I seem to be having, especially at idle When in neutral and idling it seems very high. When I put it in gear it drops down to a more normal idle. But even then there seems to be slack in the cable as I can push the lever pretty far forward before it actually starts increasing the throttle. I'm not sure how to adjust the cable maybe? I tried adjusting idle mixture and I got it going good but that didnt affect the high rpm. Any input would be appreciated, thank you.

 

[aMeyers11]

Could it be becuase my cables are too long and are looped in the boat? I'm really not sure how to disconnect the throttle cable and adjust it?

 

[aMeyers11]

I adjusted the idle stop screw and it seems to be idling much lower now but I've run into another issue. I disconnected the throttle cable at the motor. When I took the screw out of the cable end I heard a cling noise and something fell near the throttle cable down into the lower cowling. I'm not sure what it was or how to get it back. Through this process I found I could manually get the motor to idle low and rev good by moving the throttle by hand. I tried to reconnect the throttle cable and realized that the throttle cable reaches WOT, but stops short on it's way back to idle. I tried adjusting the barrel many times, but no success. I found that there is a good bit of slack in the black end peice of the line. I feel this is why it wont return to idle? Is this wiggle room if the cable normal? I'm also unsure of how to get the screw to stay on the throttle lever, I'm assuming its whatever peice fell in the lower cowling is what holds that screw?