Mine was hard to change on a Merc 1983 70 that sat in a yard on a boat for a quarter century. I have many tools and seldom buy any but at Lowes the smallest nail puller tool did the trick.
The guy above that said 2 stroke will ALWAYS have more torque, speed and power is right. Yoy see many high end boats today with 4 or 6 outboards on them, that 2 would do with 2 stroke, not to mention that the Evinrude 8 still holds the worlds speed record!
You seem the guy to go to for info on this outboard and you have one in the cellar to boot and know a lot about Mercs. Can you tell me or send a photo or diagram of where the battery cables are attached to the outboard. I can guess, but spent a lot of time cleaning as many terminals with rust...
I had to go look at mine again to make sure I was not missing something, and mine is not like this with no fixture for a manual choke. IT is hard on mine to get that weighted tube up into the round assembly (not much room) so I will just let the small cable hang there.
Me either, I think it was a ghost wire that had me stumped thinking it was part of the electric solenoid system. To make sure it hangs up on anything I will cut it off as it serves no purpose. Fastbullet must have a lot of experience and/or an original Mercury shop manual too.
But there is no manual choke knob? The enrichment solenoid is electric and has a yellow wire with black stripe going to it which would negate the need for a manual choke. Maybe other models had a manual choke and this ring terminal just waves in the air not doing anything. Model serial is...
Yes, you must do those things first. No fuel, I usually take the plugs out for a lot of things. Never have done the procedure for timing, running or not.
This is so frustrating, as I can find little in online manuals or the seloc paper shop manual which the online ones are seloc also. What does anyone think of this. Take off the whole airbox on front of the engine and reroute starting wires AND that crazy choke/enrichment solenoid. That box...