What to do?

Aye ye ye, you are all so helpful. but I am a girl who is not mechanically inclined, and well..... neither is my husband but after this huge debacle we are going to become proficient. I found a place in Arizona to have mechanic talk to as they work on ECMs of course the Arizona guy told mechanic to replace the distributor as he has heard of this situation and thats the cause. I asked my mechanic but didn't we replace the distributor cap and the rotor -no change. He said" yep but we have to replace the whole thing not just replace parts. So i said ok lets get it ordered. He told me he was going on vacation next week. @!^&$#*&@^$(@*Q^%RQ&#%$*9 THis is when I want to be boating. So I am going to find a new mechanic as you have all pointed out. I was feeling that I presented a running boat (albeit with a fuel smell issue) but now I don't have a running boat. I am in the middle of the state so finding an actual I/O mechanic around here is a bit of a chore but this is not working for me. I am thinking we should order a manual/schematic for this boat and go through these things piece by piece as has been suggested. We are going to start from scratch and also look at the carb float. Islandhopper I am not sure but this weekend we will get up there and look. Thank You for all the support and suggestions. Do you all have a reccomendation on THE manual to get?

Go to any descent boat store they shOuld have mercruiser manuals. If your up for trying to work on it yourself I'm sure there are people on here that are willing to spend a couple min on the phone to walk you through some stuff. your looking to do is very simple and straight forward. And if u take your time u will teach yourself. If ya get out there and need some help pm ill give u my number and try to walk u through a couple things. If u decide to do this go to sears or similar store and buy a mechanics yool kit usually around 200pcs in the box maybe 100 $ @ most. I'm all ears lemme know if ya need help. Its been done for me.

Replacing the entire distributor, without any diagnosis of a mechanically broken drive shaft, makes no sense at all You need someone that actually knows how to diagnose a electrical, meaning spark, or carburetor, meaning fuel problem Its not that hard. Any auto mechanic can do that.

Here is my question. When you had it running for 20 min at home did you ever put it in gear? If so did you turn the engine off with it in gear? If this situation occurs the drive can hang in gear even though the control handle is in neutral, the engine controls think it is still in gear and will not allow it to start. If this is the case, move the shifter to the full throttle forward position then the full throttle reverse position two or three times then back to neutral. See if it starts..

Wow! Thank You! Off to Sears this weekend

wlsage said:

Here is my question. When you had it running for 20 min at home did you ever put it in gear? If so did you turn the engine off with it in gear? If this situation occurs the drive can hang in gear even though the control handle is in neutral, the engine controls think it is still in gear and will not allow it to start. If this is the case, move the shifter to the full throttle forward position then the full throttle reverse position two or three times then back to neutral. See if it starts..

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When you get back from Sears and are at the boat try this!!!

Before even moving the shifter grab the prop and c if its locked in gear if it is it should not turn to easily. Then try the shifter trick

OK I need to clear up some of the mis-information here.
It is not the neutral safety switch.
When the shifter is in gear (and the switch is in the shifter) and you turn the key nothing will happen. Nothing, not even a click of the starter solenoid. The neutral safety switch cuts off power to the starter circuit. The whole purpose of it is to keep the prop from moving when you try to start it in gear. The only way to do this is disable the starter. If you don't believe me try it next time you are on the boat.
So if you ever have a no start situation and the starter is turning the engine it IS NOT THE NEUTRAL SAFETY SWITCH

Reading back to the original post the problem started after the gauges were replaced and the bellows replaced. To me it would seem that one of those things caused the problem.
What could happen with replacing the gauges? Well I would look at the ignition wire (the purple one) coming off of the key switch. It powers up the gauges but also supplies power to the coil. Do the gauges power up correctly? if not check for a blown fuse (I believe it is fused) or a bad connection. When you turn the key to run do you get power to the coil? Also check the kill switch which does disconnect power to the coil.
Replacing the bellows means that the shift cable was involved. Is the shift interrupter switch working properly? It will also effect the power to the coil.

If I were you I would find a new mechanic and realize that anyone can give you advice on the internet but that doesn't mean that it is good advice. And that includes this post as well :grin:

dwna1a said:

The distributor has a set of pickups in it. Under the rotor. (mine does) you should see three wires come from it and on to other areas. First do you have a pickup, second was it replaced? I will post a photo of the part in question here in a second.

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This is exactly what happened to me. Figure it out following the troubleshooting guide in the Merc Manual for the boat. It was basically a flow chart, very step-wise, and pointed to this gadget. Pulled the one off the other engine and it started right up. This happened without warning.

this thread may be of some help...
http://clubsearay.com/showthread.ph...ier-what-is-it-and-what-does-it-do?highlight=

I have had this happen, while backing away from a sandbar the engine died. Put it in neutral and engine would spin but not start. I got on the phone with my mechanic who told me to do the shifter trick. It started right up.

If it has a thunderbolt ignition system there should be a main harness running into the back starboard side of the engine with a hose clamp around the connection. Take that connection loose and visually inspect it. We lost 2 days of vacation with an old boat because that connection was loose. Good news is the boat got a new cap, rotor, spark plugs, wires, coil, etc... All because the engine harness was loose. Bad news is we replaced a bunch of good parts trying to figure it out