Bill Cooper

McHunter, You actually have a 2001 Engine. One common problem I see with those is the timing linkage coming loose or falling off. The idle speed screw is mounted in a plastic holder on the timer base. On the starboard side of the engine, look under the flywheel. There will be some wires in a black sleeve running down the side of the motor. Right where the wires go under the flywheel there should be a black plastic piece screwed to the timer base arm with a flat headed stainless steel screw that is the idle speed screw. Make sure it has not fallen off and laying in the lower engine cowling. If everything looks OK, you will probably need some professional help. If you need a picture send me an email referencing your model number and this forum. sonsacmarine@hotmail.com

You are very welcome. I wanted to let everyone know that I have started back into my night college classes, so I will out of commission for awhile (lack of spare time.) If anyone has questions, please fire me an email to sonsacmarine@hotmail.com. I have a break coming in mid-October, so I will check back in then to see what is happening. After that, I have a full load of classes until May of 2012. College, BRP, & Mercury. Also, I visited with the Dept. of Agriculture fuel inspector last week. He just qualified 4- Five grade fuel pumps in the Jefferson City area. These pumps dispense 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, & 85% Ethanol. Be careful when dispensing that you put no more than 10% ethanol in the fuel tank of any vehicle unless it is marked and approved for Flex-Fuel up to 85% ethanol.

David, you really should not have any problems if the gasket set you used was made in 1992. Especially if it was an OEM gasket set from Mercury Marine. All OEM replacement parts are made to withstand the fuels of the day for when they are manufactured. Inherently that old Chrysler is more apt to have problems from carbon build up. Give it a good soaking with Power Tune or Engine tuner once a year or every 50 hours, fog it with a good fogging oil if it is going to set three months or more without running, and stabilize your fuel. You won't hear this very often from boat mechanics, but, "I love most of the old Chryslers." There is value in simplicity. Too bad they had to die because of emmission standards.

BTW, if anyone would like to test how much ethanol is in your fuel, I have the test on my website. It is easy and all it takes is a syringe and some water. Go to www.servicehoney.com and click the All About Boats tab on the left. You can even listen to some of my old radio shows if you like. I am currently perfecting a winterization procedure to end all problems associated with ethanol extended fuels. This upcoming season will be my pilot season for it. Next, I will be experimenting with E85 on carbureted 2-cycle outboards if anyone is interested. I could use a few guinea pigs. All engines will have to be pre-1998. Preferably, OMC large bore 2-cylinder, 3-cylinder, 90 degree V-4 & V-6 Crossflows. Is there a need? E15 is simple to compensate for.

Rolan, Wonderful post! I would like to add a few things for the marine side of life. #1: Many octane booster or lead substitute additives were causing sediments to form in marine carburetors. The additives would react with engine oil in the fuel to form “goo” like Vaseline often with a reddish color. This substance would cause sticking needle valves and plugged orifices. Often, filters would never catch it because it stayed in liquid form until it reached the carburetor and had time to settle out of the mix. #2: Detergents. OMC recommended 89 or higher octane fuel for a long time because of the higher detergent properties offered in the premium fuels. This is no longer the case. The federal government mandated refineries to add the detergents to all fuels regardless of octane rating. Since that mandate occurred the recommendation has returned to 87 AKI fuel minimum. #3: Octane rating. Ethanol raises the RON (Research Octane Number). It does nothing for the MIN (Motor Index Number). If anyone will read the little sticker on a gas pump some time it will have a formula of R+M/2=AKI. AKI (Anti-Knock Index) is the average of the two numbers; so, a fuel with 100 RON and 80 MIN yields 90 AKI. Likewise; a fuel with 95 RON and 85 MIN yields the same, but it is better fuel for a marine engine. RON is measured at idle speed, no load, and low temperature. MIN is measured at high speed, heavy load, and high temperatures. Lead was the greatest improver of MIN in the old days. Unfortunately, we are unable to learn what the RON or MIN is for the fuel we are purchasing. If anyone would like to spend the money to find out, the Dept. of Agriculture has a knock engine they use to test samples taken from stations to verify pump posted octane rating. My pumps are normally tested from 2 times per year to once every two years. #4: O2 Sensors. Most marine engines do not have O2 sensors because the exhaust is cooled by water. Water will damage an O2 sensor and not allow it to reach a temperature to accurately read or sniff the exhaust. EFI & DFI engines use other sensors and computer mapping programs to compensate for different atmospheric conditions. Engines are tested and EPA approved at the factory using a special gasoline called Brown gas. It is some rather nasty low quality fuel, but is used as a baseline for all emission testing. If the engines will pass the test on this sludge, they will run beautifully on ethanol blended fuel. #5: Corrosion. Most marine carburetors have a dichromate finish to assist in corrosion resistance. OMC & BRP also used many Mynlon (plastic) carburetors and float bowls for corrosion resistance and weight reduction. Never soak these types of carburetors in a harsh dip type cleaner. They will remove the dichromate or melt the Mynlon. #6: Running out of fuel. Never, ever, ever run an engine with an electric fuel pump or oil injection pump out of fuel by closing off the fuel line or disconnecting it. Electric fuel pumps rely on the fuel passing through them to cool the pump. Within a few seconds to a few minutes of dry running an electric fuel pump will ruin it. Oil injection pumps, particularly OMC VRO or BRP OMS, will begin pumping excessive oil into the carburetors when fuel lines are disconnected or closed off. Draining the fuel system is acceptable if it is accessible, but always make sure the system is fully primed before any electric fuel pumps are turned on. Summary: The greatest difference in marine and automotive fuel use is the frequency of use. Most vehicles on the road get a fresh batch of fuel in the tank weekly or every two weeks. Most boats do not see that amount of use and the fuel remains in the tank for months or even years. This is where the greatest problems come from the use of ethanol extended fuels or even the old standard gas we used to get in the 70’s and 80’s. Varnish, moisture, and degradation occur faster now, possible in as little as 15 days. This is why fuel stabilizers are so prominently recommended in recreational products and cars just don’t have the problems as much.

Dennis, please allow me to clarify your statement a little. The manufacturers you speak of are those manufacturing fuel additives. Evinrude only recommends two fuel additives for their engines: 2+4 fuel conditioner and carbon guard. 2+4 is to stabilize fuel from deteriorating over time(it prevents gum and varnish from old fuel). One could argue that ethanol blended fuel deteriorates faster than pure gasoline, but that is not the reason Evinrude recommends it. Carbon guard is to reduce carbon deposits inside engines. Again one could argue that ethanol leaves behind more carbon because it burns colder, but again that is not where this recommendation came from. Gasoline took a major transformation in 1985. Lead was completely removed. The lead in the gasoline was used by outboard manufacturers as a lubricant. 2 cycle engines do not have valves; therefore, lead is not needed to prevent valve seat erosion. When the lead disappeared, engine manufacturers had to compensate for the lack of extra lubrication by making engine tolerances higher or looser. These bigger tolerances allowed more area for carbon to invade and cause problems like ring jacking and ring sticking. Carbon guard was developed to help remove this excess carbon. Mercury follows the same recommendations of two additives: Gasoline Stabilizer comparable to 2+4 and Quickleen comparable to Carbon guard. I am not a Yamaha dealer, but I would venture to guess they have the same form of stabilizer and Ring-Free is their version of Carbon guard. Be very careful with all the additives available on the market. I cannot knock any particular brand of additives. I sell and use Amsoil's. One disturbing problem I am experiencing quite frequently is the over-use of additives. I am not knocking the product, but Sea Foam seems to be the choice of additives that gets over-used the most. I have had customers tell me about how they keep adding can after can of Sea Foam to the same tank of fuel. By the time it makes it into my shop, the fuel hoses and primer bulb are literally melting off the engine. Another concern I have in the over-use category. Everyone has heard of HEET. HEET is made of methanol alcohol. If anyone will whip out their engine owner's manual and read the fuel recommendations it will state that use of fuel with up to 10% ethanol OR 5% methanol with 5% cosolvents is acceptable. That is a big OR. If someone fills the tank up with 10% ethanol extended fuel and throws in a couple cans of HEET on top, well, is that acceptable fuel? In my opinion it is not. The recommendations say OR not AND. I would love some feedback on this subject and I hope to clarify what is REALLY going on.

Fellow anglers and boaters: All the hype, outright lies, misconceptions, and fear about ethanol is driving me crazy. Let me clear up a few things for you in the mechanical world of ethanol. Ethanol does not create as much heat as pure gasoline; therefore, engines produce less horsepower when using it. Ethanol is more aggressive at deteriorating plastic and rubber parts. Ethanol will also attract moisture. Now, with that said, ethanol has been on the market since 1980, yes over 30 years. In that 30 years time, engine manufacturers have designed components and engines to operate on ethanol blended fuels. Your engines will not blow up because of 10% ethanol in the fuel! They will blow up if you do not maintain your engine and fuel system! We all need to settle down a bit about ethanol being the cause of every engine problem. Ethanol is here to stay. We need to deal with it and not run from it. I do not particularly like ethanol blended fuel, but it does not scare me out of my mind that I would drive 30 miles out of my way to fill up at a station that posts they have no ethanol in their fuel. I am going to make a statement that will probably not be very popular, but I have just about had all I can take of "shade tree mechanics" scaring everyone to death about ethanol. If a "boat repair guy" blames everything on ethanol, run away as fast as you can. If that "boat repair guy" cannot make your engine run on ethanol blended fuel, he should not be a "boat repair guy." I am not saying that ethanol has never created some problems. What I am saying is that those problems are curable, preventable, and nothing new. I have not received any new information from engine manufacturers about 10% ethanol since the 90's. I have received updates that repeat the same stuff we have been doing for nearly 30 years. This frenzy of blaming everything on ethanol reminds me of the days when oil injection was blamed for every powerhead failure. I have been repairing boats for 28 years and have only repaired 5 engines that died from oil injection failures without any warning. So let's not go there either, please.

Sorry for the late reply!!! And, I hope baby made it here just fine. The key to finding out if your engine is rebuildable is finding the root cause of the failure. Ethanol-VERY UNLIKELY!!! The engine needs to be disassembled and inspected to evaluate what went wrong. Now, I understand the financial situation with new baby and all, but take my advice and save yourself several thousand dollars and do what I say. I am a Mercury Master Technician. If you let the engine set and do nothing chances are there will be very little to overhaul. The engine must be fully "winterized" now if you have not had it fixed. If water intrusion caused the failure to #6 and you did not oil it down, then the block is probably not repairable now. But, you can still save the fuel pumps and injectors with some easy maintenance. If you plan to have it fixed within one year, then getting some fuel stabilizer in the system will do the trick. If it is going to be longer than a year, you need to come see me to evacuate the system. Send me an email sonsacmarine@hotmail.com

Interstate 24M-XHD meets the requirements for all Optimax Engines.If you have a core it is $118.63(taxes included) at Son Sac Marine. Optimax engines do require high CCA batteries, but with the correct size battery they still sound like they are dragging at first. The reason is the engine is pumping up the air rails with air pressure so the engine will start.

Dave, 10 gauge wire would be fine for the distance you are running. Install a 30 Amp circuit breaker or fuse. Make sure you use a large enough battery or you will drain it too fast and will not be able to start your engine. If you have a pull starter on the engine, no problem. Another thing to consider, the alternator on your engine will not recharge the battery fast enough to replace what the depth finder and T/M will be taking out. Most small outboards have around a 3-6 amp charging system and some none at all. In simple terms, let's say you operate your trolling motor and depth finder for an hour, conservatively, you draw a 15 Amp load for that hour. If your outboard has a 5 Amp charging system, you will have to run the engine at full throttle for 3 hours to replace the energy used by the T/M & D/F. When looking at batteries pay close attention to the reserve capacity. This gives you an amount of time in minutes at a specific load (generally 25 Amps) before the battery voltage gets too low to start the motor. The higher the reserve capacity, the longer you can troll and still be able to start your outboard.

Gentlemen, I am very disappointed to see the responses in this post. Maybe you need to slip over to the Ruark Bluff Area of Stockton lake and check out our tackle selection and service. My wife spends an enormous amount of time and effort to get good deals on tackle to pass along to our customers. Most of the time she beats Wal-Mart's prices substantially. As far as the small town attitudes, I hope you find a pleasant atmosphere as Son Sac Marine. If you don't please let me know so I can remedy the situation. On the subject of needing a new tackle store on the lake, I have to admit that I am biased and would say no. However, from a business standpoint, I believe that anyone trying to submit a business plan to a bank for opening a new tackle only store on Stockton would most likely get rejected unless you had $50,000 above and beyond the initial cost to open the business and only needed to borrow $20-$30 for the welcome mat.

Thanks for the good reviews everyone. Bill here from Son Sac Marine. KS I would be happy to work you into my schedule. Currently I have 63 boats on the schedule. If you have a minor problem, I might be able to get you in and out pretty quick. Son Sac Marine is located 8 miles north of Greenfield on H Hiway. Our phone # is 417-637-5555 email is sonsacmarine@hotmail.com and website is www.servicehoney.com. To everyone, I will try to monitor the forums in my spare time (which is very limited) and offer up some light technical advice. Repairing the heavy stuff is how I make my living and feed my family. So please understand, when it gets too deep I will be refering you to paid services. I offer online assistance at very reasonable prices and I am available at Son Sac Marine Tues-Sat 9am-5pm year round.