Fuddyduddy
Regular Contributor
Recently purchased an older boat outfitted with an older 50 hp engine. Took the old girl for a test run and she would run smooth but only do about 5 mph. Took her out and ran it in a barrel to clean the carbs and took her out again. Same story. Cleaned out the gas tank and got a new hose and bulb and changed the plugs. Marine Mechanic found the throttle linkage to be messed up so he worked on that and we took it out again. A bit hard to start and it ran hard but would tend to lose power sporadically to about 80 percent. Like someone would pull the top plug wire and then place it back on, This seemed to go away as the motor warmed up. I suspect a plug wire but I am real ignorant about Mercury outboards. I only know that bad things can and do happen when you own a boat. Especially an old one. Again this is a 50 HP Merc 500 1977 vintage #4707239 (that serial number doesn't seem to register on the search engine here) Thanks, Mike