Thanks for the replies y'all. I have been out of touch for a while. My mom was in the hospital in Pittsburgh over the holidays, it was cold up there.

I still haven't swapped out switch boxes (chore # 1241524) but thats the next thing I plan to do. It sure acts like half the cylinders just drop out. I've had that happen with (i think) older mercs on work boats, the mechanic called it a power pack then.

As soon as I get those switch boxes on I'll let you know how it went.

BTW I've messed with al sorts of high tech batteries & I always come back to a deep cycle marine, it's the longest lasting & toughest battery.

Doug

Chasing old threads to fix this same (or similar) problem & see I didn't finish this thread up. It was the power pack, switched them both been running fine ever since. 7 years!

This time it has half the power it should but there was no intermittent stuff, it just never would run right, from startup. - new problem, new thread.