deputydawg
Lieutenant Commander
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,607
If any of you remember I bought a 1976 Ebko with a 165 mercury. The outdrive was rusted up and froze, the motor has less than 15 hours but it has all been sitting for 3 years. I later found a crack in the lower housing as I was preparing to buy tools to rebuild the drive. I decided instead of trying to repair the crack, ( it had already been JB welded but it did not hold). I found a used pre alpha drive off of a boat that had been in a fire, got the whole thing for free. The burned boat had a 160hp Merc, so I swapped the drive. At the suggestion of those here I had it pressure tested, it showed seals all good. <br />Today I got it on the lake for a test run. Here is what I found. <br />The engine would not get over what sounded like 1000 RPMs, although the tach showed 4000. The engine was bogged down, but the boat would not get up on plane. I got about 100 yards out of the no wake zone, then came back to dock. Drive held up to that, but I would have rather ran full power to make it a good test run. I checked the filter on the top of the fuel pump, it was slightly moist and I knocked a little dirt out of it, but it was not plugged. Should the bulb that houses the filter have fuel in it? I spun the engine with the filter and housing off and it started for a second, but no fuel showed out of the top of the pump. This filter is on top of the mechanical pump on the left side of the block. Should this have constant fuel to it? I did not have the right wrench to check the filter on the carb, forgot that one.<br />I then started pulling plug wires as the engine was shaking and would not idle again. I had an idle problem at first when I first got the drive on the boat but changing fuel in the tank fixed that. Anyway I pulled 4 plug wires off, when I pulled the 5th one is the first I noted any difference in the engine idle. It died when I pulled that one. I pulled the 6th wire and it again about died. For some reason I am missing on 4 cylinders. I could hear a snapping between the distributor cap and the spark plug. One plug wire was corroded at the distributor, and of course that was one of the plugs that was misfiring.<br />I haven't pulled the plugs yet, I took my plug wrench along but grabbed the wrong size. I could not pull the distributor because the screwdriver I had in my pocket was back at the house. I sat on the couch and my wife made me take it out of my pocket. <br />When I cleaned the filter a bit I took it out from the dock again. After backing away from the dock I shifted to forward and it hit hard. The second time I went from neutral to forward, it wouldn't shift. Then it stuck in reverse even though I was in forward. I had to adjust the shift cable when I put this drive on, but it acted like the cable was wrong or something. It is not engaging in full forward until I open the throttle a bit. I can turn the porp against the gears until I open it a bit more. <br />I still have the exhaust riser spitting into the boat, but that is my winter project. It is just the rubber coupler hose. <br />Will get the plugs pulled and see where I am at.
