I sure have been having a lot of bad luck with Mercury's lately. Im going to tell the story about this particular motor and see if anyone can chime in with advice.
I bought this 96 2-stroke 4cyl 40hp merc a few months ago for a good price. It seemed to have some carb issues so I took it in and the mechanic cleaned and adjusted them. He said that the cylinders had good compression (114, 120, 120, 119). I took it out for about 15 minutes and full throttled it for a bit and it ran great. I then took it home and mounted a jet foot onto it, went back out a couple of weeks later and it didn't want to start consistently. It also seemed to be running a bit slower than I would expect even given the loss of power with the jet foot. After a few minutes of running it, I shut it off and couldn't get it running again. Mechanic said I probably had water in the tank so I flushed the carbs out and it seemed to crank up a little bit better but wouldn't start or idle without a bit of throttle on the slow speed adjustment lever. I took it out on the water again and adjusted the throttle cable so that it was getting a bit more gas on start and idle and I got it idling fine. Water was coming out of the pee hole in a nice steady stream. I throttled it up and it seemed to be going fairly slow (maybe 15mph or so). I then started hearing some clanking in the engine so I shut it down and looked under the cover and saw that there appeared to be a crack in one of the cylinders (pictures attached). After cursing for a minute, I took it off the water and am now contemplating what to do. I don't know for sure that it happened the last time I took it out but it must not have happened until after the mechanic worked on it as the compression was good at that point and it pushed the boat about 38mph. so first, given my description, any guesses as to why the cylinder might have blown?
and second, do you think its worth welding it up? Ive got a friend who could probably do it for free and it seems to be in a very accessible spot...but I don't know if this is just going to prolong my bad luck with this motor. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I had high hopes for this motor...
I bought this 96 2-stroke 4cyl 40hp merc a few months ago for a good price. It seemed to have some carb issues so I took it in and the mechanic cleaned and adjusted them. He said that the cylinders had good compression (114, 120, 120, 119). I took it out for about 15 minutes and full throttled it for a bit and it ran great. I then took it home and mounted a jet foot onto it, went back out a couple of weeks later and it didn't want to start consistently. It also seemed to be running a bit slower than I would expect even given the loss of power with the jet foot. After a few minutes of running it, I shut it off and couldn't get it running again. Mechanic said I probably had water in the tank so I flushed the carbs out and it seemed to crank up a little bit better but wouldn't start or idle without a bit of throttle on the slow speed adjustment lever. I took it out on the water again and adjusted the throttle cable so that it was getting a bit more gas on start and idle and I got it idling fine. Water was coming out of the pee hole in a nice steady stream. I throttled it up and it seemed to be going fairly slow (maybe 15mph or so). I then started hearing some clanking in the engine so I shut it down and looked under the cover and saw that there appeared to be a crack in one of the cylinders (pictures attached). After cursing for a minute, I took it off the water and am now contemplating what to do. I don't know for sure that it happened the last time I took it out but it must not have happened until after the mechanic worked on it as the compression was good at that point and it pushed the boat about 38mph. so first, given my description, any guesses as to why the cylinder might have blown?
and second, do you think its worth welding it up? Ive got a friend who could probably do it for free and it seems to be in a very accessible spot...but I don't know if this is just going to prolong my bad luck with this motor. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I had high hopes for this motor...
