Two rookie questions

[phatdaddy]

Ditto on the ngk's. On the other stuff, I always used merc parts, especially on water pumps, t-stats & poppet valves. Not that much difference in price from the look-a-like parts. Lot of opinions on this , but I also used merc lubricants and premium 2-stroke oil.

Sounds like your doing a lot of your maintenance, see if you can find a copy of the merc shop manual for that motor. Not a seloc or clymer, big difference.

[spareparts]

Originally Posted by phatdaddy

Ditto on the ngk's. On the other stuff, I always used merc parts, especially on water pumps, t-stats & poppet valves. Not that much difference in price from the look-a-like parts. Lot of opinions on this , but I also used merc lubricants and premium 2-stroke oil.

Sounds like your doing a lot of your maintenance, see if you can find a copy of the merc shop manual for that motor. Not a seloc or clymer, big difference.

Very true, at one time aftermarket had a substantial price savings to justify using it, but now the price isn't that much different, so go with oem if you have any concerns. I use some aftermarket parts, but its stuff I know works and its worth the savings. I will not use aftermarket for water pumps, and oil filters and fuel filters on Japanese engines. Some times knowing the supplier to the OEM helps, Japanese filters are usually Nippondenso, merc uses NGK plugs, Suzuki uses some of the same stuff that Yamaha uses(Nikki), but sells it cheaper, etc...

[Jeb]

This is all great advice. After quickly searching Amazon, I noticed that the prices were all relatively the same, so I've been able to order Merc/Quicksilver products exclusively so far. (NGK plugs, too).

I wouldn't consider myself mechanically inclined, but I plan on doing as much maintenance/learning as much as I feel comfortable with. I ordered a manual.

As long as we're on topic - I'll throw this out there for thoughts: Like so many 6 cyl 2-strokes of this era, the oil injection unit proved faulty for the previous owner. He bypassed it before it caused him any problems and has been using the gravity-fed oil tank that sits right on top of the motor for the last couple of years.

I don't hate the idea of continuing this practice, except for the fact that the reservoir seems pretty small. What are your thoughts on just mixing directly into the fuel instead? What is the downside of that besides the inconvenience of doing occasional math?

I feel like 2-strokes did well on this practice for like 75 years before oil injection (and their crappy parts) came into play. Appreciate feedback on this. (And as I finish writing this, I'm thinking that there are probably 1000 threads dedicated exactly to this. Apologies if that's the case!)

Jeb

[Jeb]

Yup... just saw this thread. Same thing.

[RidgeRunner]

If you buy that premix cup the math is already figured out for you;-) Premixing only sucks because of the additional smoke at idle from my experience. Mix a little heavy, like 40:1 and idle around a lot and you can foul plugs. Or at least the old beast 250 EFI would.
From the post title - I was wondering if it took a rookie to respond or a rookie to pose a question. So I was drawn into this one... Sounds great, giving her some love. You might be a little green but now your not a rookie.. LOL! Your on the right path and these guys are experts at parts.

[Destroyer]

For the Mercury oil injection topic, there's really only two ways to go. (one) Buy an electronic oil injection unit. or (two) use premix. Now I know that most people here use and recommend premix, mostly because it's cheap and it does the job. But I have one of those oil injection units and since I use my boat less than a lot of people here I'm very happy with it. I can expect the unit to last somewhere between 600 to 1200 hours of run time, and since I only put on about 50 hours a year that's a long, long time that I don't have to fuss with adding oil, figuring out ratios, remembering if I put in oil, etc, etc, etc. So the choice is yours. In all cases DO NOT just use that gravity fed tank at the top of your engine. If you do, at some point in the near future we'll all be reading your post asking where can you buy a new engine.

[Jeb]

Originally Posted by Destroyer

In all cases DO NOT just use that gravity fed tank at the top of your engine. If you do, at some point in the near future we'll all be reading your post asking where can you buy a new engine.

OH!! Okay! Good to know. Why is this so bad? Just the likelihood of running it dry?

Mixing will commence! Thanks.

[spareparts]

the gravity tank on top of the engine is just a transfer tank, the bypass he did, didn't do much. The part that gives issue with Merc oil injection system is still working(you hope). The way the stock system worked, crank case pulses pressurized the oil tank in the boat, that forced oil to the transfer tank on top of the engine(two hoses, one pressure, one oil feed). That part was pretty reliable and hardly gave any issue as long as you kept the top of the oil reservoir tight. The small reservoir on top of the engine gravity fed the oil pump on the port side of the engine. The oil pump was driven by a worm gear that ran off the crankshaft. That's where the problem is, the gear on the crankshaft was made of plastic. If there was any issue with the pump, the gear would strip off and not pump any oil. Merc was smart enough(seemed to be at the time) to put a sensor on the oil pump drive shaft that would set an alarm if the shaft stopped spinning. That system worked pretty good, good enough for Yamaha to copy some of it and actually use an almost direct copy of the oil pump(same manufacture), Yamaha was smart enough to use a bronze gear instead of plastic. After years of trying to figure out what was causing the gear failure, Merc finally found the coupling they put in there for the sensor to work would swell up and lock up the pump drive, causing the gear to strip out. Had Merc used a bronze gear, there system would probably have been just as reliable if not more so than Yamaha's system.

Easiest way to remove oil injection on a merc(maybe not the best, but the easiest). Remove the reservoir inside the boat, remove the oil feed and pressure hose(two black hoses made together, one with a blue stripe). Follow the hoses to the engine. You will see a fitting under the starter on the starboard side, that's where the crank pulse come from. Remove that fitting from the block, replace it with a pipe plug(NPT) the same size, throw the fitting away. Remove the engine reservoir from the engine, the oil lines will go to the oil pump, its a clear hose that has probably turned green from the oil. Check and see if the hose is in good shape, If it is, use a section of the hose and loop it from the oil pump inlet to the oil pump outlet, leave some oil in the hose so it keeps the pump lubricated. Follow the pump outlet hoses down to where it tees into the fuel line. Remove the Tee, good time to replace the fuel line with new, so just replace that section. The wires from the oil pump sensor and the oil tank lid go to a black box(warning module) on top of the engine, unhook the wires, remove the box and pitch it. The box ties into a terminal on the starboard side that has tan/blue stripe wires running into it, make sure to only remove the wire from the module. You can test the alarm system later by grounding that terminal with the key on, it should sound the alarm. The only thing left to do is remove the linkage from the oil pump to the carburetor, it just snaps on, it may take a little prying to get it off, remove it from the pump and carb. The next time you start the engine up, make sure you premix with 2 stroke before starting it up.

There is a better way to deal with the oil pump, but it requires ordering some parts and doing a little more work, this is the easiest, but not necessarily the best way

good luck