what does p stand for on serial# tag

[Dan8m]

What does the p stand for?

 

[boscoe]

Model year of the motor.

 

[Dan8m]

O, is it 1982?

 

[boscoe]

1983

 

[haventaclue]

Q would designate '82. These Mariners are Yamahas painted in Mariner colours and sold by Mercury mostly in Europe and Asia. P also denotes 2004 if it was on a Yamaha badged outboard, And just to make it confusing, some sites give P for '91
The number itself comes up as an '82 Mariner. Here's a link to the parts list. https://www.marineengine.com/parts/mariner-outboard-parts/8b/677300101-and-up-ml

 

[haventaclue]

Correction P denotes 2004 for Yamahas sold in Asia and Australia.
P is 1983 in Europe and again 1991 in USA and Europe. Yamaha reuses their letter codes up to 2005 or 6. Open to correction there.

 

[boscoe]

From my Yamaha book of serials and from a Yamaha dealer's website.

 

[haventaclue]

Boscoe I'm going to guess you are down under This is the USA codes, they start in '84 as Mercurys deal with Yamaha to build 2cyl Mariners expired/disagreed or Yamaha decided they would make more money selling their own brand. https://www.perfprotech.com/blog/ya...rial-number-location-and-model-identification.
Here is Mercurys own site where I pull the numbers for the Mariners. http://download.brunswick-marine.co...snew/desc?mod=17&lang=EN&categories=Outboard$.
On this chart it gives the start number for 1982 as 677-367081 and the start number for 1983 as 677-378156 ,this is why I said 677- 377794 is '82, a difference of 362 motors, I need help. There's no difference in the motors until they change from 677-xxxxxx to 6G1-xxxxxx.
There's a lot of contradictory info on the www., which is probably why it takes me an hour to find what I'm looking for and one of my kids two minutes

 

[Dan8m]

Thanks for all the time and info. If it is 1982, which seems right what does p stand for? the year 1982?

 

[haventaclue]

If it was a Yamaha badged 8M the P would mean it is 1983 or 1991. But because of the different sources giving different information lead to this discussion.
As your Mariner motors number begins with 677- it's safe to say it is early '80s, and I'll agree to disagree over whether it's an '83 or '82
It doesn't matter as the link to the parts list covers both '82 and '83. They are the same outboard.

And just to confuse you Q is the letter code on a Yamaha from 1982 and 1992.
Graham Lamb where are you? He is the Mariner guru