I pulled off the Evinrude 40 hp prop motor last weekend and got the Mercury 60/45 jet fired up yesterday. It sounded pretty good but it would stall out at idle so I need to adjust the idle. I didn't want to do it in the driveway yesterday making so much noise so I'll run it up to the river when my tags come in for my truck. I'm ready to get back out on the water but I'm not in a hurry to screw anything up so I've been taking my time. I scored an NOS Mercury wiring harness off Ebay for $38 with the key switch and mounting hardware so that was pretty much plug and play. I hate being stuck at work on nice days when I could be working on the boat!
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Got the Mercury 60/45 fired up and almost ready to go
- Thread starter JL8Jeff
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I had to adjust the idle on my 1990 Mercury 90 hp prop motor last year and it took 45 minutes and I was running out of daylight and floated a mile downstream before I hit the sweet spot on each carb. I forget which way it was wrong, but the manual said to turn out the idle air screws either 1-1/4 or 1-1/2 turns and it ended up being 1/4 turn wrong but I forget which direction.
Finally got the boat out on the water with the Mercury jet installed. The motor seems to run really good and I still need to tweak the idle a little more but I really just wanted to run it for a good 20-30 minutes and check everything out. The boat still porpoises pretty bad even with the jet instead of the prop motor. I'll be out by myself 99% of the time so I need to get some weight up front to stop the porpoising. I might move the battery in front of the console to move that weight but it's not really that heavy. The motor is trimmed in as far as it can get just like the prop motor but it starts porpoising at half throttle.
smackdaddy53
Well-known member
Trim tabs may help
dhoganjr
Well-known member
If you can't get the porpoising under control a whaletail will stop it. May lose 1-2 mph on the top end, but if you can't get past half throttle it won't matter anyway. You can order them from www.trouttandsons.com
Give them a call and they can set you up. Hope you get it worked out.
Give them a call and they can set you up. Hope you get it worked out.
LarryMc
Well-known member
If the porpoising is caused by not being able to trim the motor in enough, you can buy transom wedges to increase the amount of positive trim. CMC makes 2 degree wedges and Bob's Machine Shop makes 5 degree wedges.
Since I have the tunnel, Trout and Sons said the whale tail won't do any good. So I first tried 55 lbs of weight up front but still couldn't get past 1/2 throttle and it would porpoise. I picked up some transom wedges and put them on over the weekend but the river was running high with a lot of debris so it wasn't worth trying to run it. I tried using the oil injection last weekend but ended up with a constant beeping warning horn so thinking the float wasn't working I ran it on a tank of premix to be safe. It ran horrible and then I found a big oil leak from the blown out pump. I think the check valve went bad and caused too much pressure in the pump which blew out a gasket or seal. So I completely disabled the oil injection and removed the gear and ran the fuel line straight to the fuel pump and premixed. Today was probably the only chance to run until the weekend so even though the river is still high, I took the boat out after work. It was hard to start but ran fine once it was running. With the wedges and about 75 lbs up front I was able to run at whatever speed I wanted to with no porpoising. The engine ran strong and moved along pretty well even against the strong current, it flew downstream! I'm kind of surprised how well it turns with the jet. So far, I'm really happy with the Mercury 60/45 jet, I think it's a 1994 motor. It had a tree branch fall on the boat and motor during Sandy and it sat outside exposed all of last year. I'm still getting dirt out of every nook and cranny every time I run it.
dearl
Well-known member
Been there done that....My rig porpoised really bad when I first ran it, I ended up with both batteries up front, both 25 lb anchors, and a cooler on the front deck. It leveled out and runs really strong. During the summer I just put the 30 gallon bait tank up there and go, when empty I can control the porpoising with the trim but to get to top speed I have to have some weight on the front no doubt.
I tried going up 1 more bolt hole and ended up with more sprayback, it wanted to porpoise a little and it was a little louder. It also sucked air a little easier going over wakes and some chop. So I went back down a bolt hole and that is definitely the sweet spot. Got caught in a sudden rain on Saturday and had to pull into a tunnel where a creek runs under the canal and road to wait it out.
Had the boat out both days this weekend and I'm reallying liking this setup. The 60/45 still needs some idle adjustments but it's more than enough for the boat and I can cruise at half throttle or anywhere in between. I don't think I'm going to have the time to paint the boat this season like I wanted to so I might put it in the water for the season this week.
