Hello. Last weekend I took my 1976 Silverline with a 1969 Merc. 800 out for the first time. I used all the info. that I found on this site before my launch. Everything from ramp courtesy to running the engine the night before on the muffs. It fired right up when I fired it up in the drive way. Anyways, I got it in the water no problem and here is what occured.<br /><br />The engine had a complete rebuild and it has been ran for 10 hours after that rebuild, according to the previous owner. He gave em all the parts that were changed out. The gas tank has set for a few years, I cleaned it out and placed a new fuel filter on. Anyways, I get out there and after a warm-up. I open it up, it runs up to 5000-5200 rpm fine. We run around the lake for a while and then stop for awhile. Oh, the gas tank, 12 gallons has 10.5 gallons, oil and about 10 oz. of Seafoam. Well, we start back up and start running around and I go up to 5K or so and the engine just seems to shut down and the rpms drop down until the engine shuts off. I restart the engine and it fires up right away. I think I may have had to use the choke a little bit to start back up. It does it again anytime I run up to that rpm range. This started to occur when I had a little less than 1/2 tank of gas, according to my panel gauge. I did have a hard time starting it once but I think I may have flooded the engine. I thought the bulb was very soft and primed the engine again, it fired back up and I got to shore to reload the boat. When I got near shore it seemed that the rpms at idle were a little down and the engine would stall when I was going in forward and reverse trying to get the boat into position, but this could have been due to me not giving it any gas when I was shifting between forward and reverse. Anyways, the only thing I noticed was that the fuel filter, which is on top of the gas tank, is a NAPA Gold see-thru. The filter, laying horizontally, is only half-full. It appeared at times that the gas would barely be up to the holes that fed the filter and line. Any help in this situation would be greatly appreciated.<br /><br />Now secondly,<br /><br />I drained the lower unit oil prior to taking it out. I looks like a light brown. Water is obviously present. I flush it out with new and fill it up and replace washers under the fill/drain screws. When I got back from teh first time out, the engine sat for a day and I went to go check the LU oil. I unscrewed the drain screw and a teaspoon of clear water came out and then the oil with a slight cloud to the blue color came out. Now, what else do I need to check to get this thing sealed and since the boating season is coming to an end here in central Ohio, can I just fill up again with clean oil and drain it after my next use and fix this thing over the fall winter? Any pointers would be greatly appreciated and I do apologize for the length of this post. I await your wisdom!!!
