1997 Mercury 60 HP ELPTO Hard Cranking

[pestario13]

I have a 1997 Mercury 60 HP ELPTO that was running just fine then suddenly died. I thought it was locked up, but when I got it back to the garage and put a breaker bar on the top nut of the flywheel, it spun. I hooked up the muffs and tried to start it, it spun over just fine for about 3 rotations and acted like it locked up again. I pulled the plugs and it cranked slowly. It may be a bad battery, but I don't understand why it would die while running unless it has a bad component in the charging system as well. I also don't understand why it would act like its locked up unless its hydrolocking because of unburned fuel. My fear is that something may be binding up in the engine, but not exactly an outboard expert. Just wondering if anyone had any experience with this.

 

[racerone]

It is not locked up because of unburned fuel !!------Do a compression test.-------Check gear oil.-----Was oil injection working properly ?-----Water pump maintained ?

 

[pestario13]

unfortunately I don't have a lot of this information. Gear oil was just changed last fall and this was the first time out since changing it. I can't tell you if the oil injection was working, but I know the engine block was not hot when it shut down. I pulled the cover and you could put your hand right on the block, so it shouldn't have overheated which is what I assume would happen if it weren't properly lubricated/cooled.

 

[pestario13]

Solved: Compression was 110 PSI across the board for all 3 cylinders. Turned out to be the top bearing in the lower unit seized up.