1984 60HP Tell Tale Temp?

[pastorbobnlnh]

Hi, as you can tell from my post numbers, I'm new to the forums--- but more importantly--- very new to boating and boats!

My question is about the tell tale stream coming from the motor when running and is warmed up. Is it supposed to be the temperature of the water, or just warm, or hot? When I put my hand under it it is definitely warm, but not so hot that I need to remove my hand.

I ask because I read somewhere here that it is supposed to be cold--- but that was for a different brand outboard.

Background on my boat: I bought a 1984 Starcraft this spring and it came with the original 1984 60HP 3 cylinder Mercury outboard. The previous owner took good care of the boat and motor and shared old receipts to show the work or parts he had purchased. The motor was always winterized and almost always the boat was stored indoors when not in the water, especially over the winter.

He did say that he had not used the boat in the previous year (2015) but that he had installed a new impeller 1in 2014.

Finally, any tips in starting when the outdoor temps are higher (80s+)? It tends to flood when the engine housing is hot from sitting in the sun all day.

Thanks!

 

[Alumarine]

Warm is just fine.
I often use the tell tale to wash my hands on a cold day.

Nice looking boat!

 

[pastorbobnlnh]

Thank you marc c for confirming that which seemed logical to me. If the water intake is to cool the engine, the output should end up warmer. When I read that it should be "cold" that didn't make sense, because the heat from the running engine needed to be transferred back to the water source.

Thanks for the compliment on the boat! We are enjoying it! However, the 60HP really likes to throttle up and go! We tend to prefer cruising at a rather pokey to moderately pokey speed on our 200 acre lake. The 32 year old outboard doesn't really like this. I'm guessing we might replace the motor with a smaller 4 stroke sometime in the future.

 

[60sboater]

That's not much room to run. Maybe it could use a little carb attention and new plugs since it was idle since 2014. You could put some SeaFoam in the tank...might help the carb. Spark plugs are cheap.