kylebriant
New member
Hey all, new to the site, first time poster so thank you all in advance. I have a 1973 Kiekhaefer Mercury 200 (20 HP). It's manual (pull) start. I bought it last year and haven't done anything with it since i bought it. Recently got it out and put it in a 55 gallon drum to start it and it takes about 30-40 pulls to start. My starting procedure is as follows: connect fuel line to motor, pump primer ball until hard, choke it, pull, pull, pull some more until it finally tries to fire, turn to half choke, pull 10+ more times, back to full choke and pull several more times, turn choke off so i don't flood it, take a break to catch my breath and continue pulling and choking and unchoking until it finally starts. I've tried spraying carb & choke cleaner in the carb but it has no effect. Once it finally does start it idles great and runs awesome up to about half throttle which leads me to my next problem- at about half throttle or a little more it falls on it's face and stalls like it's losing fuel pressure. I have read a bunch of forums on here about these motors and their less than optimal wiring- mine does have some wiring that has chipped/loose/missing insulation. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated as i can't afford rotator cuff surgery and my shoulder is quite sore!
