1995 Mercury 115

[reelfishin]

I just picked up a super nice Mercury 115 for my Starcraft, the problem is I don't have controls for it. What do I need to look for to fit this motor? The motor came from a boat with a center console so the controls stayed with the boat. It has power tilt/trim, is a 2 stroke 20" shaft. The boat is currently set up for an Evinrude, so I have nothing but the motor right now.
How many pin cable should this year use? What year motors would be the same?

 

[109jb]

Re: 1995 Mercury 115

I just picked up a super nice Mercury 115 for my Starcraft, the problem is I don't have controls for it. What do I need to look for to fit this motor? The motor came from a boat with a center console so the controls stayed with the boat. It has power tilt/trim, is a 2 stroke 20" shaft. The boat is currently set up for an Evinrude, so I have nothing but the motor right now.
How many pin cable should this year use? What year motors would be the same?

Just about any Mercury control should work. The pin connections are pretty well standardized. Don't know what kind of boat you have but there are some nice concealed mount controls on e-bay right now. They are new take off units for $150. Here is a link.

If you need wiring help I have a listing of the color codes and what they are. Mercury has used the same color codes forever.

Edit: Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that the concealed mount controls you would need a separate key switch. With the suface mount style the key is built in. The surface mount would be the easiest. If you happen to get a control with a different connector than the engine wiring there are adapters that you can get through mercury dealers.

 

[reelfishin]

Re: 1995 Mercury 115

The boat is an old aluminum Starcraft, so concealed controls are out, it needs to be surface mount controls. I'm trying to avoid buying an adapter, since I have nothing, I might as well just buy what I need. The problem is I'm not sure what harness I need. I see lots of controls listed as 14 pin, 8 pin, and 7 pin, but I'm not sure what years they used which style.
The 14 pin controls have a red plug and 14 tiny gold pins, which I'd assume to be for computer run engines in later years, but I'm not sure when Mercury changed. I don't have a Mercury dealer around here that will tell you anything, they all want to sell you a new motor. Three that I called, all within a few hours talked like a 1995 was too old to fix, let alone retro fit to another hull, one even said he'd offer me $200 trade in on it if I spent over $10k on a new motor. That's not going to happen. I got the motor cheap, it was a garage kept, freshwater run motor that maybe got ran a few times ever year. It looks like and checks out like a new motor. The guy opted for a new four stroke and I traded this one for the install of the new motor. (He didn't trust the selling dealer to install it).

I don't mind spending money to get a new one, I just need to know what to order since it will be an online purchase. All parts for any Merc I own will have to be as there are no dealers that stock older parts anywhere near me. (If it were a Yamaha, OMC, no problem around here but its a Merc so I go hunting for parts).
I don't have any brand preference at all, but from what I see so far, parts will be an issue here. (It took three tries to get a water pump kit for it, I finally gave up and went to NAPA auto parts for a Sierra kit which they had overnight).

I've got a few older Mercury controls, from the early 70's or so, but they use the old 7 pin plug harness that attached externally, this motor has a small round black plug under the hood on the Starboard side. The guy wouldn't let me take the harness as he bought an adapter to use his binnacle controls on the new motor, plus a dash package with all new gauges. His starts with a separate ignition switch.

I have several of the newer controls here, their from 2002 or so era motor packages which came with side mount controls while the boat retained it's original wiring and controls.