I hope someone can give me some help with this because I live a long way from any repair shop so here goes. I have a 2001 50hp merc 2-stroke that idles erratic, up and down from 1500 rpm back to 1000 rpm. It pops,farts or whatever running along at slow speeds. Seems to be running rich. Wide open, it runs great. I took the carbs off to clean them but they were spotless. I installed new fuel inlet needle valves in all three carbs. Tried to adjust the idle down but won't go any lower than it is. The idle mixture screws are set right now at 1 and 1/4 turns out. Did have them at 1 1/2 but no change. Has new plugs. Do these engines have any vacumn leak problems? Also, don't know if it's related or not but the yellow wire coming out of the rectifier, the connector to the wire harness from the rectifier was melted. Also the yellow wire coming out of the stator where it connected to the wire harness was melted too. I cut both connectors out of the circuts and hard wired them. Like I say I have no idea why those connectors were melted and not sure it is related to the engine running problem either. So if any of you have any ideas I would really appreciate it. Thanks a bunch!
