Mercury 1999 9.9 hp

[OFF SIDE]

Yes it's an eye opener, I don't operate that way, some people are dishonest.
Finally got the gaskets, installed both, fired it up. I noticed smoke , which I assume is from the exhaust come out of the tell tale. Is this normal? The tell tale before did not shoot exhaust out before the water started coming out. The thing I'm baffled about is when the gaskets were on wrong water was pouring into the pistons, but it fired and ran, how is this possible?

 

[racerone]

Hopefully no water found it's way to the bearings.----Water on bearings destroys them quickly.

 

[OFF SIDE]

I was able to fix the issue. It would appear when the previous owner replaced the impeller he had not seated the rubber spout into the the tube properly, water was leaking.
At this point I don't trust any of the work which was done on this motor
Alls good runs great, one question, there are holes on either side of the shaft, what are these holes? Should they be plugged or?

 

[OFF SIDE]

Can anyone suggest what these hole might be?