1977 Mercury 850 -- How essential is the mercury tilt switch?

1977 Mercury 850 is coming out of storage after 30 years. Compression is good, and I was told it ran great when it was stored. We'll see.
I'm replacing fuel lines, replacing crispy wiring, replaced the trigger, and will remove the carbs to clean any accumulated debris.
The blue mercury tilt switch wire insulation is crispy. Will the motor run with the switch disconnected? When the motor is vertical, is the mercury switch open or closed?

The switch works with the shocks on the clamp bracket, if you hit an underwater object the shocks resist the impact and if the prop exits the water the switch momentarily shorts the ignition to prevent overspeed. You can remove it if you want to.
Vertically the switch is open, if you are disposing of it be careful it contains poisonous mercury.
Passengers were killed or severely injured when motors flew up and broke off their clamps so Mercury developed this system in the 50's to prevent it.
Image from Mercury's test program in the 70's

Here's what happens without shocks and that switch Johnson 35 hp.

Quicksilver said:

Here's what happens without shocks and that switchView attachment 26681 Johnson 35 hp.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Great photos to illustrate the point.
Once I get the motor up and running, I'll be replacing that switch.

Question: Do ANY modern outboards still use these?

Seriously.

Jeff

Nope.....

PTT took the place of that switch that was a result of testing at Lake X in Florida in the late '50's and early 60's....same testing that had shocks added initially....which became just the spot for changing the shocks to hydraulic cylinders and the advent of PTT for Merc engines of the time. The history of the site and things they did to Merc engines is worth reading. Probably in Wikipedia under Karl's biography.

The problem was that unprotected, when they would slam their engines, going full speed, into logs floating on the water, or running across narrow sand bars, was that there was nothing to keep the engine from kicking up nor flopping down. Soooo since the throttle was usually where it was when the object was hit, the engine comes out screaming in RPMs with no load on the prop.....fast forward, gravity does it's thing the engine comes slamming down, the prop is turning who knows how much faster than what it was doing when it left the water and the two together either broke transom brackets, mid section castings, or transoms. "And that folks is the rest of the Story" Paul Harvey, News Commentator for many years.