noise and gas leak in my 125 HP Merc outboard. help!

[mallardtone-man]

I recently bought this motor and it has run good for the past 2 months I noticed gas leaking from the accelerator pump so I purchased a rebuild kit and put it in took it out and it was running better than ever. I started trolling and after a bit it died. went to restart it it took 5 cranks and then started and died again. I got it going again and threw it into forward to give it some gas it was bogging down and sounded like it was misfiring. while trying to restart it I primed the bulb on the fuel hose a number of times thinking maybe it wasn't getting gas. when doing that I could hear a noise like air or possibly gas leaking out of something inside the motor. I have never noticed this before but and would like to know if this is normal or not. also after that I noticed some gas dripping out of the front of the motor. I'm not sure if I just over pumped the fuel line and this is normal or if that could be the source of my problem. I still have not gotten it running I really need some help guys any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks James

 

[mallardtone-man]

ok so I figured I got the motor running again today. It turns out the tank it was connected to was almost empty I'm sure that's why I was able to get it going but it wouldn't run right. I am still having a little trouble getting it started cold. I checked the plugs and they were dirty so I cleaned them probably need to be replaced. Also am almost positive that the sucking noise I heard was coming from the fuel filter small white round component on the fuel line before it enters the motor not sure what this is called. is this normal? Also no gas leaking this time. at least not yet. Any thoughts?