Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

I flushed the tank and replaced the bulb along with a bunch of other maintenance this spring. Ran great on ear muffs at home. Went to the lake sunday, hit the key at the launch and my merc started right up. Backed off to the end of the docks and when I put it into gear it died. After a few attempts I got it started back up and did idle figure eights for a couple minutes and when I was going back to the dock to pick up the family it died again. Never could get it restarted. Man I hate it when stuff does not work right. I am going to check for fuel and spark first and move on from that point. My wife wants me to take it to a repair shop but my man instincts won't let me for some reason?

That sucks Mike! Did you change out fuel lines too?? Could there be lose connection somewhere sounds definitely like a fuel issue.... New plugs or old ones?

We checked all the lines and it was all good. I SHOULD have went ahead and bought a small external fuel tank to take that all out of the loop but I didnt... My guess (without testing for anything yet) is either fuel pump or coil? Last time I took it out it was having a hard time restarting when warm which makes me think coil?

Sometimes the arrow on the bulb gets installed the wrong direction.

And often, the vent on a fuel tank must be unscrewed.

And 90/10 gasoline can gum up carbs--to where carb. cleaning is a maintenance task. There's often a lot of trash going through the fuel system with 90/10.

Ok, I finally got the rebuilt fuel pump and new spark plugs put back in and she started right up! I was going thru the manual to re-set the idle and realized I didn't have a timing light to check the timing. Any tips on getting it all setup correctly? I took off the throttle cable and adjusted the arm so it just touched the cam. Then set the idle to what sounded about right. I filled up a trash can and ran it back and forth from idle into gear and then back into reverse and it didn't die anymore so I think I am on the right track. I am not sure exactly how to set the lean/rich mixture, the manual was not very clear. The arm that attached to the throttle cable has three threaded adjustments. One on the top, two on the bottom. I am thinking the one on the top sets the mixture? Anyone play with this stuff on a 90's merc 115 before?

MIke,
mine is set to 1 and a half turns out. My manual only goes to 1998 115's. I tried to look up the exact rec's for your motor. If you want them for a 98 let me know., but I think 1999 was a new style.

cool, is this the top mixture screw? 1.5 turns out from what? I think mine is a 98... Model number 1-115412UD

The only time you worry about adjusting the timing on a boat is when you've been into the engine. If the flywheel's never even been removed, don't worry about timing if the boat's always run fine.

I don't adjust the carb unless it's been disassembled for cleaning. Before I disassemble any carb., I note how many turns it takes to "seat" any adjustment screws and re-set the screw at the same "turns" when reassembling them.

With the 90/10 gasoline, so many problems today are "rubber" related--trash in the gasoline, rubber membranes on fuel pumps and sticky needle valves.

Update:

Of course Murphy struck the night before I was planning on taking it up to the lake and my truck threw a check engine light and went into limp mode so I didnt get a chance to take it up to the lake this weekend and now have to get my truck figured out (seems like its a TPS based on the code). Oh well, one of these years I will get my boat back in the water!!

If your truck will run long enough, take it by Autozone, Advance or O'Reilly's and get them to read the code on your OBDII system. It might tell you what direction you need to take.

Vehicles often throw check engine codes. But when they go into "fail safe" mode, things can be a little more serious.

Last time I took my car in for a check engine light, it cost me an additional $75 because I hadn't taken time to have the code read. That's big $ for a 2 minute test.

Hey it could be worst, my toon out having fun without me, she been out four times since I've been on her

This is from Saturday, I had to work



Hope you get all the bugs worked out soon and cheap

Fixed the truck, the Edge Evolution programmer was the issue. I called them up and they sent me a new one at no charge and it fixed my problems!

Awesome glad you got her running!! I think I will be replacing battery in the truck tonight had to jump her this morning!!

If its not one thing, right! I just had to replace the battery in my wifes car a few weeks ago...