Found tapered spring in bottom of motor casing

[JoHerring]

I found this stainless steel spring sitting in the bottom of my 1993 40HP Merc 2-stroke outboard engine casing. I'm not very fond of this type of surprise.

It is 1-3/4" long with a closed loop at the larger end and a hook at the smaller end as illustrated in the attached picture. Any help with where this could come from would be welcome.

 

[ENSIGN]

Re: Found tapered spring in bottom of motor casing

It looks like the return spring for the cable going to the rewind start housing

 

[JoHerring]

Re: Found tapered spring in bottom of motor casing

Thanks Ensign - I'm not sure what the rewind start housing is in this case as it is an electric starter.

 

[JoHerring]

Re: Found tapered spring in bottom of motor casing

I guess I hadn't used my vise grips since that day. There I was tinkering away in the basement this morning at 5:00am and wondering what was wrong with my vise grips: the spring was missing. As soon as I looked at them it was obvious that the tapered spring was from them.

I'm glad it wasn't a missing spring from somewhere on the Merc.