merc distributor troubles

[jefflos68]

Hi all,<br />I have a '63 inline 6 cyl. 100hp mercury engine.<br />It ran great last year, except for once, it wouldn't start. I eventually found water in the distributor. The cap had no cracks that I could see. I cleaned it out and it started and it ran great. This year is started and ran, but stalled out on me and wouldn't start. I pulled the distributor cap again and found metal shavings. Any ideas where these are coming from? Do I need a new distributor? Thanks in advance for the input.

 

[jefflos68]

Re: merc distributor troubles

OK, to follow up, I took the distributor apart and found a bearing had gone on the shaft. I put new bearings on and decided to change the points and condensors as they were wore. I set the point gap at .02 as it said in my manual, put it all together the same. When I fire it up, it backfires. I thought it might be the timing, but I checked the sparkplugs where each is marked on the flywheel, and they all fire in the right sequence. Is there anything special I need to do with the points? I'm sure I got the gap right and would the wrong gap cause the loud backfiring I am getting? Any help would be greatly appreciated.<br />jefflos

 

[12Footer]

Re: merc distributor troubles

Common failure with these dist assemblies is the rotor itself, stripping-out at the rotor shaft.<br />If this is the case with yours, you should be able to turn it fairly easy,with one or two fingers.<br />The last one that did that to me,I was very tempted to use JB Weld on, because the entire dist shaft assy must be replaced....Ka-ching.<br />But I lucked-out and found one in a boatyard for 10 buks, I pulled..Not bad, considering the puppy is 300 buks new IF you can find a new one.

 

[jefflos68]

Re: merc distributor troubles

12footer, thanks for the reply.<br />Forgive my ignorance, I'm still learning this stuff (and enjoying it immensely, btw) are you saying that the rotor shouldn't turn on the shaft, or it should be stiff? I noticed when I took the rotor off that it had locktite on but I didn't use any. Could this be the problem? Again, thanks for the reply.<br />jefflos

 

[jefflos68]

Re: merc distributor troubles

Back again,<br />I don't think it can move, the shaft has a pin through it that holds the rotor in place, it can't move at all, except with the whole dist. shaft. Let me know if I'm not understanding you correctly. Thanks

 

[12Footer]

Re: merc distributor troubles

It cannot move at all. It it turns by hand (carefull not to break it tho), then this is the problem. The timing belt may also have jumped a tooth.<br />To check this, remove the plug from #1 cylinder, and put a breaker bar on the flyweel nut. insert a pencil into the plug hole a ways, and rotate the flywheel clockwise, until the piston is at top dead center (the farthest out that the pencil gets). After finding TDC, you should find the rotor on #1 plug terminal on the dist cap, or very close to it. Close does count here.If it is in between #1 and another one, or not even close to #1, your dist jumped time somehow. The only question remaining is what component let go?<br />The areas this can happen in are.<br />Flywheel key (sheared out,,somewhat common)<br />timing belt broken or tooth jumped on pulley(not common at all).<br /><br />Rotor stripped out at the dist shaft (most common)<br /><br />plug wires transposed when changing plugs or testing (but yours went off underway,so that's out).<br />The pencil shoul at least let you know if timing is an issue or not.<br />If not, we are back to the drawing board...With a greasy pencil,I might add.