Re: '73 9.8 wont throttle up
Dave: Your problem can be fuel or spark related.<br /><br />I bought an older 9.8 last year and this is what I did to get it running perfectly:<br /><br />Completely inspected and cleaned tank, pick up inside tank, hoses and cleaned the fuel filter (which is right where the fuel line goes into the fuel pump /carb inside the cowling). Very easy and about 20 minutes and $0 if no parts are needed. This should be done with any older engine. Could easily be the source of fuel starvation.<br /><br />I also bought a shop manual (Mercury - but I found the Seloc is adequate for this) and dismantled, soaked and cleaned and blew out the carb with a can of compressed air. I used the gasket kit, not the full rebuild kit (it was $70, the gaskets were only $7-8). I also did the fuel pump kit - which is just a set of gaskets and rubber parts, very easy and another $7-8. The carb was a little trickier, but I've never done any carb work, and it was no big deal.<br /><br />This should be done for any engine that might have been stored for a while resulting in fuel drying out inside the carb and clogging orifices.<br /><br />After all that I also found that one of the coils was bad. This was an easy to diagnose and replace. This is a more unusual problem, but no big deal. However the coil did cost around $40 from oldmercs.com<br /><br />In the mean time, with an old engine, you should routinely replace the waterpump impeller if it hasn't been done recently. If it's got a strong stream from the tell tale, it's probably not something you need to do right away, but should be done soon - another pretty straight forward DIY.<br /><br />If you have any specific questions about these things, I can maybe give advice from the perspective of a rank beginner whos worked through them.<br /><br />Good luck.
