50 HP 1984 Mercury sputters and dies

[R B]

I have a 1984 Mercury 50 HP outboard that came with a boat I bought in December. I drained all fuel and filled the tank with fresh fuel. Replaced the spark plugs. Put a new plunger in the choke solenoid.
Motor runs good on ears so I was ready to take it on the lake. It started fine then as I was running it just in gear, it died out. We did not go far from the ramp where we planned on fishing so I let it be.
An hour later I tried restarting it. It wouldn't start unless I had it chocked and the throttle al the way down. Seem like excessive gas was spitting out the exhaust.
Got it running and throttled it up and it sputter all the way to full throttle and lacked for power. It then died out again.

Thankfully I had a trolling motor!

Serial # 6486874

 

[Bosunsmate]

Re: 50 HP 1984 Mercury sputters and dies

check the plunger hasnt stuck and is flooding it

 

[R B]

Re: 50 HP 1984 Mercury sputters and dies

check the plunger hasnt stuck and is flooding it

I did check the plunger and it was moving freely. It did appear to be flooding as there was fuel pooled up under the carburetor.

Should I pull and clean the carbs? Any idea where to get carb rebuild kits?

 

[Bosunsmate]

Re: 50 HP 1984 Mercury sputters and dies

Tilt the motor up a bit and pump the prime bulb.
Is fuel coming out of any carb?
If so remove and adjust the float level so it closes earlier, check the needle and seat and check the float still floats

 

[R B]

Re: 50 HP 1984 Mercury sputters and dies

Bosunmate, thanks for the information. I called a local repair shop to get a gasket kit. All the local shops are busy keeping the flood water out of their shops or are closed. The floods here on the Fox River Chain are bad.

 

[MH Hawker]

Re: 50 HP 1984 Mercury sputters and dies

The carbs are gummed up. You can try running some sea foam through it on the muffs to clean it out , it may help a lot.

 

[CharlieB]

Re: 50 HP 1984 Mercury sputters and dies

Look up the carb kit part # here, have your model and serial # handy

The #1 web site for genuine Mercury Mercruiser engines, parts and propellers

Check that carb kit # here on iBoats, probably get a better price.

As you drain each carb into a suitable container, look for any 'beads' of water rolling around on the bottom of your cup, if so, install a water seperating fuel filter to prevent this from happening again.

Before disassembling the carbs, turn IN each idle mixture screw while counting the turns, only turn in to LIGHTLY seated, you do not want to distort the seat or smoosh the needle tip. Write down the count so you can put each one back to the exact same position once finished, this will save you a lot of time fine tuning the mixture.

 

[R B]

Re: 50 HP 1984 Mercury sputters and dies

Omg! More problems found! I have some wires falling apart just under the front of the flywheel.

 

[R B]

Re: 50 HP 1984 Mercury sputters and dies

So I guess I need to replace the Stator. How does the flywheel come of on this unit? Serial # 6486874