Idle problems on a 40 hp Mercury

[midnight1957]

I have a 1995 or 1996 Mercury 40 hp on a 21 ft pontoon. This motor has not run in 2 years that I know of, maybe more. I drained all of the old gas from it and filled it with new gas. Last week I took my pontoon to the lake and it would idle fine when it was not under load but when I put it in gear it would die. After cranking it many times I was able to get it into gear and when running wide open throddle it never missed a lick. When I would let it idle again same problem and it made it difficult to load onto my trailer.
I have one of the carbs off now and was planning to put it into some carb cleaner that I have, then wash it with water then blow it out with air. Does this sound like the low speed jet and is there anything in particular that I should be looking for or anything special that I should do or not do when reassembling them?
If all of the gaskets are good can I just clean them and reuse the old gaskets?
The carbs model is WMA.

Thanks ahead of time for your help, this forum has been a great help to me, I love it.

Wade

 

[Carphuntin_god]

Re: Idle problems on a 40 hp Mercury

I'm going to watch your thread. I have a 92 40 magnum that has idle issues... but I think mine has a lot to do with having the engine tilted up for shallow-water running.

I'm looking for other threads now, and info on the carbs as I suspect that the bowl isn't accomadating running while tilted well. Not sure how it's built to handle that situation.