Mercury 60 Bigfoot

Hi guys. Well, I took my Yamaha to the dealer to have the carbs rebuilt and synchronized. In the mean time I helped a fella out with his new to him pontoon. I installed a motor for him, did some welding to the engine mount and rigged it for him so now he's set. In exchange for my labor I got his 2011 Bigfoot. Neither of us know anything about its prior life but I'm relatively sure it has some issues. I figured that I'll give it a look and see what it will take to get it back to running condition if possible. It spins free so I don't think that it has a bent rod. I pulled the engine cover off and first thing I see is no spark plugs. Hmmm, I'll have to do a compression check. I then checked the oil. Blacker than black so I drain it and first thing to come out was about a teaspoon of water. Not a good sign I'm thinking. Maybe a blown head gasket if I'm lucky and not a cracked block. Today I'm going to pull the lower unit and see what I find there. I think what I'm going to do is do some disassembly and see what I can find out on its condition. I'll take the major components and have them dye penetrant inspected and pressure checked if it gets to that point.

Does anyone know where I can get hold of gaskets for the head, etc. for a reasonable price? I've went on line and they are exorbitant. I'm thinking this may be one of the reasons this motor wasn't fixed.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

If I didn't get but a teaspoon of water out I wouldn't necessarily jump to the conclusion that it had any blown gaskets. Depending on where the motor has been setting it could possibly just be condensation. I would carry on with a full compression check before I did anything drastic and hoped for the best.

Condensation didn't occur to me! That would be nice. This engine is going to be a learning tool for me. I'm just kind of surprised how much it has in common with current automotive engines with fuel injection. That stuff I'm familiar with so this won't be too much of a stretch for me. I'm just more than a little taken back by the cost of parts for these engines. It's border line ridiculous.

Yeah condensation, especially with it not having plugs in it.

Just out of curiosity, what were the prices on the gaskets?

The price on the head gasket itself was right at 200.00 which I think is outlandish.
I went through the lower unit today and did a visual inspedtion of the clutch, gears, etc.. Everything looks to be in good shape which is nice. I'm going to try and locate a compression gage for 14mm plugs and do a compression check. I'm also going to try and find a bore scope so I can check out the cylinders without removing the head.

Put some penetrating oil in the clys. ATF/acetone 50/50 work particularly well in dissolving any rust in there.

eeshaw said:

The price on the head gasket itself was right at 200.00 which I think is outlandish.
I went through the lower unit today and did a visual inspedtion of the clutch, gears, etc.. Everything looks to be in good shape which is nice. I'm going to try and locate a compression gage for 14mm plugs and do a compression check. I'm also going to try and find a bore scope so I can check out the cylinders without removing the head.

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OOF! :shock:

Then again I just paid $36 for a 2" plastic tube for a 1979 200 im working on.

$35 for a carb/fuel pump gasket set that didnt even include a carb float, which was another $30.

Merc sure is fond of their parts.

I'm under the impression that anything that is even remotely related to recreation is going to get the gouge on you. 4x4s, boats, motorcycles, aviation, they all want to stick it to ya.

Well, I got the block and head all torn down and disassembled. The head isn't too bad. It will need a valve job across all the valves and the seats ground. Those are all some tiny areas so I'd have to be really careful doing it so as not to sink the valve in the head seats too far. I'll have to get the valves cleaned up and check them for runout and face pitting. The cam appears to be reusable, I'll have to get it cleaned up and check the lobes closer. The biggest thing I've found so far is a bent rod in number 4 cylinder. I can get rods but oversize pistons and rings is the problem. I'd sleeve it but again, probably not available. What I really need to find is a block that is standard bore from an engine that floated a valve and killed a piston or something of that nature. What would be ideal is to find a short block but the only one I've found is $2200. and that isn't in my ball park. I was kind of surprised that these engines use siamesed cylinders also. Reminded me of a Chevy 400, but no steam holes between cylinders.

Checking back on this motor fiasco. I found out that the valves in the head are supposedly nitrided, i.e, they can't be ground or it removes the hardening from them and they will sink into the valve seat after they've ran for a while. When I removed the head bolts two of them snapped off. Needless to say that those needed removed. Got one out and pulled the steel thread from the hole and chased it with a tap. That hole is good to go. The other one, no such luck, it still has steel from the bolt in the threaded portion of the hole. Now I have to use a mill and install a Time-Cert in the hole. Anything to be a pain.
Any body ever have a motor apart? This one has about .007 thousandths clearance on the sides of the rod to the crank cheek. The repair manual doesn't mention anything about it, just the oil clearance between the crank and rod. I guess I won't worry about it. Kind of strange though.