i had an old 71 merc 110 9.8 horse motor. got it out of barn storage and cleaned it up, replaced fuel lines, plugs, impeller and the like. got it running like a champ. what a great little motor. took a friend of mine for a ride in my little twelve foot sears and roebuck. what a combination. he loved it. has been looking for a used outboard worth buying for a couple years. i told him i really would rather not sell it. i would lend it to him whenever and so on. but he really wanted it and times are pretty lean so i told him 300.00 but i wasnt real comfortable selling to a friend. i took the engine out a couple more times to get some gas worked through it, make sure it would run all day. so i dropped it off to him last saturday morning. saturday afternoon he calls me looking for any ideas why his new to him outboard wont start. he had driven his boat about 12 miles upriver and it stalled and he couldnt get it running again. ended up rowing downriver to the nearest launch. i went over sunday to see what could have happened. well it appears that the bolt that holds the choke onto the carb had rattled out. so i fixed it and we took it up river. made it to about the same spot he had made it to the day before and he was pretty happy. motor running great. shut it off and restarted a few times. everything going great and then WHAM WHAM we hit two rocks. one right after the other. motor revved way up and then he shut it down. he says i think i broke a pin. i thought it sounded a little worse than that. pulled the engine up and he had sheared the lower right off it. apparently he never unlocked the engine to allow it to kick up when we hit those rocks. expensive mistake. he took it pretty well and we laughed for awhile before we rowed back. found a used lower for it and its all back together now. now hes into this motor for closer to 500.00.
