This reminds me of the 65hp merc I picked up for my jetstar project.
The former owner of that old merc had been trying to get it running for a while.
He was on the right track, for those there is this quick disconnect plug, so he went as far as re-doing some of the wiring.
It has been a while, but I want to say he also replaced coils, but I'm not 100% clear on that w/o going through my notes.
He bought a brand-new engine to control box harness for it, he spent hundreds of dollars on it.
Finally, his wife had enough and told him he's done.
He sold it at a loss to me.
I also bought one nice welded outboard stand that I still have from him.
His wife was happy with that being gone as well.
When I went through it, I found I got a real weak spark.
I broke out the old ohms meter and got some mixed results, traced an interment issue down to that quick disconnect plug on the engine side.
I found the one terminal that controls power through the ignition switch to the engine ignition looked corroded as hell.
I found the engine sided plug itself was some silly price for something that I didn't ever see needing a quick disconnect for.
So out came the wire snips.
Hard decision when I saw how much he spent on the wiring harness, he also sent the original with me, but it looked it's age.
The new one was so much nicer.
So, the plug on both ends got snipped, and nice crimping + solder went in.
Bam, engine right fired up!
Beyond that it was some simple things, like a rusted-out shift shaft that was impossible to seal until it was replaced.
Outboards seem so simple after dealing with an I/O.
I also enjoy the diagnostic part of the bottom feeding hobby.
But not when I'm in a hurry to get out to the lake.
Also on that 65hp, I was tempted to go visit the seller to see if he wanted to know how close he was.
Going off of how much time and money he spent trying to get it running, I figured he might want to know.
But then I decided that might be weird, and I'm sure his wife didn't want me to motivate him for another project.
