Re: 1995 115 mariner 2+2 question.
Mercguy what type of maintance did you do besides the normal greasing, plugs, lower unit lube? Did you ever do the sink n link or whatever its called. I just got this motor in june because my 94 johnson 115 blew up less then a yr after i bought it. Its getting pretty expensive. I twice what my boats worth because of having to put the johnson then mariner motors on.
Please don't use the word "sink" - it's bad luck !!
At one point during the last 11 years my Merc was running poorly and I did a lot of work to find the problem. I did a "Link N Sync", rebuilt the carbs, rebuilt the fuel pump, and replaced spark plug wires. I found nothing wrong with anything that I took apart, and the engine ran exactly the same after I did all that work.
Then I replaced every bit of fuel line from the tank to the engine and I re-torqued the exaust cover plate bolts. The engine ran beautiful after that, but I changed 2 things at once so I didn't know which item fixed the problem.
At the time my assumption was that the loose exaust cover plate bolts resulted in lost compression and reduced fuel pump efficiency and that was the root of my problems.
Since then I've wondered if the problem was actually with my fuel line. When I did the work I took the pickup tube out of the tank and noticed that it had a stainless steel screen on the end of it. That seemed stupid to me because if it ever got clogged I would not be able to fix it on the water. An inline filter seemed a much wiser choice, so I ripped the screen off the end of the pickup tube.
I have noticed that my inline filter collects rust particals, probably from a bad fillup on the water. So now I wonder if the problem was because the screen was getting clogged and restricting the fuel flow to the engine.
I'll never know the answer, but it doesn't matter since my engine once again runs perfectly.
You will notice that none of my problems, and none of the probable causes have anything to do with the 2+2 design.
