stubborn start '74 merc 1150

[MatthewtheDruid]

I got my carbs not flooding and cleaned, new floats. I noticed It's hard to get going at first. I just inherited the boat, but I recall it taking a while to start when cold but then when warmed up it's good. Testing, I blew some air through the tube to the main jet on each carb, to get the carb itself primed?, starts pretty quickly. If I don't, it takes ages to get it to fire. Then it runs okay. Next start is easier.
Sooo my question.. What should I look into. fuel flows really well.

 

[Alumarine]

Do you use the choke and fast idle lever when trying to start it cold?
Usually the choke on those is activated by pushing the key in.

 

[MatthewtheDruid]

It has a choke button above the key, yes, fast idle lever as well.
What i did was just blew some air at the fuel bowl vent, then it starts pretty easily. Otherwise, it's a bear.

 

[MatthewtheDruid]

Update: I went to start it this morning, to try a couple things another forum thread suggested, pumped the bulb extra hard, made sure the choke was 100% closed on both of the top 2 carbs. Took about half a minute and required manually added fuel. Fired up nicely. Then I notified my bottom carb vent was slowly seeping from ththe vent. So I think it needs one more float. I just rebuilt the distributor with a known good trigger. Sounds good once it starts.

This was my grandfathers boat and I used to use is when I was young a lot, but there’s a lot I forgot.
When I start it I put the idle lever all the way up and drop is down right away so it doesn’t over rev and blow up. From cold should I need to do this or should it start with it in a lower position once all the kinks are worked out?

Its already working awesome compared to when I got it officially, just trying to make sure I don’t kill it trying to fix it. A working used boat would be so much cheaper, stupid nostalgia!!

Thanks everyone!