1976 mercury 700 70 hp quits

[BlairWhitney]

After 3 years of sitting, time to get the boat going again. Starts up fine. Travel around no wake area fine. Try to get anything above blue haired old lady speed and engine acts like its flooding out. It will start back up, sometimes it has to sit a few minutes. Could it just be a mix adjustment due to the 10% ethenol crap we have to buy now. Any help is greatly appcreciated.

 

[ajgraz]

Re: 1976 mercury 700 70 hp quits

So many possibilities...

Best guess, carbs need a good disassembly and cleaning.

 

[BlairWhitney]

Re: 1976 mercury 700 70 hp quits

So many possibilities...

Best guess, carbs need a good disassembly and cleaning.

So many is an understatement. I was looking at some of the old posts and was amazed with the number of people with the same problem and the hundreds of things of things they tried. Think we will be doing a lot of shore fishing this summer.

 

[BlairWhitney]

Re: 1976 mercury 700 70 hp quits

UPDATE: After reviewing several posts I decided to take the boat out and try to narrow down the problem. After trolling around to warm up I dropped the throttle, just about ready to plane off and it dies out. checked the primer bulb and softer than overcooked pasta.(DANG!!!fuel pump) Wondered if i could learn how to rebuild one. Just for the heck of it i was going to check the tank siphon tube. Cracked open the cap on the tank and heard pthphtphtpht. HMMM!!!??? Vent was open so why did it do that? what used to be a nice chrome fancy cap also had a used to be nice rubber washer on inside of cap dried out and sealing the vent. Happened to have an older cap in glove box. put that one on and spent most of this afternoon fishing no fish but good speed and plane. Thanks to everyone who ever posted help to anybody, helped narrow down the issues.