Logo

1988 70HP 2 Stroke Mercury Choking??

John_6788

New member
Hi, Im a newer boat owner of about 3 months now. Ive been on the water every weekend and as much as possible during the week. When I first bought it, I did some basic maintenance ie: plugs, wires, impeller, thermostat, fuel filter and fuel lines.

The engine has been running well until a couple of weekends ago when it wouldnt get above 3000 rpm at full throttle.... I put it in neutral, shut it down, fired it back up and it seemed to be fine and run as normal after that. This happened again last weekend and also today. The problem seems to be getting worse. Today I tried everything to get it to behave and it didnt until I was at my fishing destination.

Funny part is, its only once when leaving the dock where I have trouble. The rest of the day it runs normally and jumps right up on plane 5500 rpm, 35 mph. When it clears itself up, you can hear it trying to gain rpm for a quick couple of seconds, then its like someone hits a switch and it runs perfectly. I can shut it down and fish for 5 minutes or 5 hours.... upon restart, its 100% normal and runs like it should.

Its always easy to start, fires right up and idles pretty smoothly. This is the case weather having the issue or not. It always has no trouble revving in neutral while experiencing its "episodes".... Seems to be only under load and only after the first start of the day...

Where is a good place to begin testing things? I do have an appropriate Seloc manual...

Thank you kindly, John
 
Sounds like it's dropping a cylinder. You need to pull plugs when it does this (before it clears up) and see which one. Could be a lot of things: Bad coil, bad plug, water getting in, etc.

Jeff
 
When you say water getting, do you mean into something on the electrical side or fuel side of things? It is stored outside, but with a fitted engine cover and a full cover over the entire boat and engine. Thank you.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top