1975 mercury 50 hp throttle adjustment

[sniper300winmag]

I have a 1975 50hp mercury it says thunderbolt ignition on it so im guessing its a thunderbolt, but i bought the boat and the origanal owner says that the throttle cable needs to be adjusted. the motor starts and runs fine and goes into gear just fine the problem is once in gear you have to push the control handle about an inch from being all the way down and from there that is all the throttle i have. when i push the control all the way down the boat bearly moves is this a throttle cable problem or something else and how do i adjust the throttle cable so the boat will travel accross the water alot faster thanks

 

[Chris1956]

Re: 1975 mercury 50 hp throttle adjustment

I will assume you have a standard MerControl. Set the throttle handle to the 12 o'Clock position. The cold start lever should be all the way down. Now the motor should be in neutral, and the throttle should be pushed up against it's stop. Remove the wrap cowling and look at the shift slider and throttle arm. Remove both cable barrels from the clamp. Make sure the neutral cable (bottom cable) has the gearcase in neutral on it's detent. Now make sure the throttle cable is pushing the carbs closed, with a bit of preload. Adjust both barrels to fit the clamp if necessary, and install them.

Push the throttle lever all the way forward , and verify the carbs are all the way open, and the motor is in forward. If so, the cables are adjusted properly. If not, something else is wrong, as there are no adjustments on the merControl.