Hi everyone, I am new the forum. I have been reading quite a few of the posts and I think I might have come to the right place.
I recently picked up an 1972 17' Kona (runabout). You know the ones that sit real low in the water, no wind shield and are meant to go fast
. Anyway it has a Merc 1500 of the same vintage.
I checked it out (to the best of my ability). Blew out the gas lines, changed out the gas. Added Sea Foam (addative). Drained the lower unit and put new oil in. She fired up and ran real good when it was hooked up to the muffs.
The first day on the lake with it, I went through 8 or 9 gallons of fuel and did not have any issues what so ever. I put it in a week later and was running about 40 mph and all of a sudden the thing just came to a screeching halt. The engine died. I had nothing.
I tried to restart and at first all that would happen is I would hear a kind of clunk noise (ignition) and then it finally started. I could get the engine to rev up but in order to do so, I had to have the throttle lever pretty much all the way forward. However, I could not get the engine in gear. It was like it was in neutral and I was reving it up. But I was using the Throttle Handle in the forward position.
One other thing I found out later was that earlier that day when my wife had taken the boat out, she told me this (after the fact) was that she could not get the reverse gears to take hold so she just pushed off the dock. She said it went into the forward gears with no problem (until the fatal stopage)
I recently picked up an 1972 17' Kona (runabout). You know the ones that sit real low in the water, no wind shield and are meant to go fast
. Anyway it has a Merc 1500 of the same vintage. I checked it out (to the best of my ability). Blew out the gas lines, changed out the gas. Added Sea Foam (addative). Drained the lower unit and put new oil in. She fired up and ran real good when it was hooked up to the muffs.
The first day on the lake with it, I went through 8 or 9 gallons of fuel and did not have any issues what so ever. I put it in a week later and was running about 40 mph and all of a sudden the thing just came to a screeching halt. The engine died. I had nothing
.I tried to restart and at first all that would happen is I would hear a kind of clunk noise (ignition) and then it finally started. I could get the engine to rev up but in order to do so, I had to have the throttle lever pretty much all the way forward. However, I could not get the engine in gear. It was like it was in neutral and I was reving it up. But I was using the Throttle Handle in the forward position.
One other thing I found out later was that earlier that day when my wife had taken the boat out, she told me this (after the fact) was that she could not get the reverse gears to take hold so she just pushed off the dock. She said it went into the forward gears with no problem (until the fatal stopage)
