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forward is reverse !!

G

gech

New member
hello, I bought a 1970 7,5hp mercury. It has phaser ignition, which is a trouble in itself.

but Even more strange; when I pull the shift leaver to forward, i.e leaver forward to near horisontal, the prop goes to reverse rotation!
and vise versa, pushing it to reverse, makes the prop go in forward !!

guess some previous, genious owner has "repaired" the merc .......... I would not have thought this would be possible at all......

any suggestions
 
Prior to 1971 that is the way the shift was set up. Nothing wrong with it! Yes, it did defy logic, Mercury loved to dabble in defying logic from time to time. The shift lever was horizontal and pointing at you for neutral, up for forward and down for reverse. Phasemaker ignition was unique for sure, do you have spark on both cylinders?
 
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fitz73222 said:
Prior to 1971 that is the way the shift was set up. Nothing wrong with it! Yes, it did defy logic, Mercury loved to dabble in defying logic from time to time. The shift lever was horizontal and pointing at you for neutral, up for forward and down for reverse. Phamaker ignition was unique for sure, do you have spark on both cylinders?
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Ahh thanks. Yes it also defyes my trained automatic armmovements. But good that its ok. However even the just bought stator seem not to give any voltage..... :(

And yes, as you outline, if I alter the handle to have neutral as horizontal it makes more sense ! and will alert my "normal shift instincts".

Possibly I should search the forum, or open a new thread; the stator is said to be fixable, remoing the ingot, and replacing the capacitors.
Looking for clues to this.
 
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First things first, you may noticed by now that the points on this engine should look horrible and that is normal, if they're severely pitted and corroded then you may have to replace them. Defying further logic, this system fires when the points are closed, not open. Which creates a huge amount of heat on the contacts. In many cases on this engine, it is the plastic insulators on the points that are cooked and cracked that creates a ground path and a no fire condition. They are cheap and available as the first starting point to get the fire back. How is the wiring on this engine? Thats another place to look for electrical loss of ignition. If it's crumbling look for trouble there. Do the simple stuff first before opening your wallet very wide to find parts for this system which most are NLA anyway.
 
I have checked the points, and substituted the white fixtures for new.
The stator does not seem to give any voltage at all. Have made & used a DCA, a peak voltage "storage" and it do'nt give anything.
Ill go over it again. (and as said, the stator, I bought, was "supposed" to be new)
 
Does your ignition have the one large capacitor? I have the factory service manual for that engine if you need me to send you some pages from diagnostics section
 
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Go to CDI Electronics and pay for the trouble shooting guide. That ignition uses ground to work. Make sure it does not have a 2 wire kill switch on it. If it has the original kill switch never use it to kill the motor unless the proo is submerged.
 
fitz73222 said:
Does your ignition have the one large capacitor? I have the factory service manual for that engine if you need me to send you some pages from diagnostics section
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Actually the cap is not visible in origial state. It is covered in the stator unit by some ingot plastic. Im trying to carv that our in order to free the cap and possibly substitute it / them (seem to be two of them.
 
And you know what. I did re-connect the salmon (actually not salmon rather red, the green is near white) to ground, and there are sparks, somewhat weaker on the lower cyl. Will test with fuel and see if it starts after what now 10yrs, dormant at my place, and who knows how many with the guy so sold it on me (he said it worked even though he didnt succeed in starting when i bought it.)
 
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