Re: 1971 Mercury 650
Re: 1971 Mercury 650
I'd bet money that the trigger assy in the distributor is bad. Unfortunately the distributor housing/trigger assy is one unit so you're either buying a new housing and rebuilding your own dist, or finding a good used one (whose remaining trigger life may or may not be long and happy!).
You may want to try the Clams Canino Merc CDI Ign tests before condemning the trigger, it'll help you figure out what's really the problem.
I'll post the procedure below, 'cause I'm not sure if the Search feature on these "new and improved" forums is working correctly:
MERCURY BATTERY-POWERED CDI TEST
FOR DISTRIBUTOR MODELS, Courtesy of Clams Canino
This test is for the 332-2986 switchbox used from 1967-1978 on all the inlines.
This test assumes your coil is good (most all are).
DISCONNCT BATTERY
1. Turn off ignion
2. Disconnect all 3 wires on the distributor side of the switchbox.
3. Remove the HV lead from the coil to the center cap (remember it unscrews
from cap)
4. Reconnect that HV center lead to the COIL side only.
5. Position that HV lead about about 3/8" from ground (block, shrouds etc)
and find a way to hold it there.
6. Jumper the brown and white terminals on the dist. side of the switchbox
together.
RECONNECT BATTERRY
7. Check that you have +12 V at red terminal.
8. Turn on ignition and verify +12V at white terminal (on red terminal side)
9. Touch the black terminal to ground - unit should cause spark each time
you touch ground.
If that passes and it won't fire at all, suspect the trigger.
HTH & G'luck............ed
