Anything scary about disassembling a Mercontrol?

[hotrod53]

I have a feeling that my cam may be bad in my Mercontrol. The F-N-R all works great and the enriched works normally, but I have to go to 50% on the throttle before it comes up off of of idle. From what I have read, I'm thinking that the cam that pulls the cable may be shot. The problem with this is that at a low idle, if you don't throttle up for 50% of the stroke, you're really close to stalling.

I'm willing to listen to suggestions as well. I have had the cables off of this motor when I restored the boat, I restored it before I ever had it in the water, therefore I don't know if it was already like this or not. Is there anything that will fly out of this thing if I take it apart?

 

[bilge rat jim]

Does it react the same in reverse? Do still have to advance the throttle (or reverse it- whatever...) before the rpms come up?

 

[GA_Boater]

Nothing scary about opening a Mercontrol. Except the the little neutral detent roller likes to fly, so watch for that.

But before you tear it apart, make sure the cables move easily and the carb is opening all the way by looking at the butterflies Disconnect at the motor end and move the control full forward and reverse feeling for stickiness.

 

[hotrod53]

It does react the same in reverse as it does in forward, it goes right in gear but you have to move the arm a real good ways before the rpms come up. Also, full throttle is beyond 90 degrees are about 8 o'clock.

 

[roscoe]

sounds normal to me.


Your idle issue is on the motor, not in the mercontrol unit.

If you need more rpm at idle, disconnect cable, adjust the throttle stop (not the mixture screw), then re attach the cable and adjust if necessary.

 

[hotrod53]

Let me make sure that I get this right, and you could be right about it being at the motor since I did have it disconnected once very early when I didnt know fully what I was doing.

Just to be clear, the engine idles just fine and the shifting is fine. So based on your explanation, the cable could actually be moving properly, but because of how I reconnected the linkage, it may not be pulling the carb open for the first 45 degrees of Mercontrol handle travel? Not having a second set of eyes, it had been my assumption that the cam in the control was not pulling the cable. I'm sure having someone pushing the lever while I'm in back would surely help. I do remember there being an adjustment slot where it attached to the linkage. I had both adjustments marked when I removed the cables and input them back where they were marked, yet that doesn't make it right.

 

[roscoe]

Throttle lever should move about 45* before the rpm's increase.
This allows you to shift into gear, without the motor revving,and damaging the lower unit.

In your initial post, you stated that the motor was "" really close to stalling.""
And it sounded like you wanted to increase the idle rpm.

So, if the engine idles fine, and shifts fine, and the carbs are fully opening at full throttle, then all is normal.