Engine Problems ?

[arron]

G' ady all,,,,

I have an old 8hp mariner i was given some time ago and has ran beautifully up until my last trip out... When i went to start her and she didn't want to fire, i know i have plenty of spark... after several attempts she fired but did not want to idle so i had to keep the revs up and dump it into gear and then even once moving couldn't slow right down or it would stall... ( my two trips prior to this was using the same fuel and havn't played with motor inbetween, and motor was running nice, start first pull idle on it's own, click it into gear would still idle on it's own..)

I have had the motor sitting since the last trip tossing up how to tackle this problem and where to start, so of i went to the garage this morning to rip of the carby a clean that out. grabbed the trolly the motor was hanging off and noticed a decent puddle of oil below it on the ground and upon inspection i realized it was gearbox oil and it was leaking out of my water intake holes ????

Now i have no idea where to start.

Any advice of possible problems are welcome....

Cheers Arron

[a boat]

Hi Aaron, if you are sure it is gearbox oil coming out of the drain holes you will have a leaking driveshaft or shiftshaft seal. Not a big job to fix if it goes according to plan, but before doing this I would want to make sure you solve the problem as to why the engine is not operating sorrectly. With all 2-Stroke outboards if you have good compression, good spark and good fuel the outboard will run. So make sure you have those three basic ingredients and to get it to run right is minor adjustments.

Cheers,

Huey.