68 or 69 Mercury 1000 Electrical problem

[wildmaninal]

Some of you may have seen my thread on "to buy or not to buy old mercury". Well I bought the motor for $150 got it home did a compression check and it shows 120 on nearly all cylinders except for the top one which shows 110. I did not have a battery hooked to anything, I just jumped it straight to the starter. I figure that I need a battery hooked to it to have fire but it wouldn't of done any good due to the burnt wire harness.

I seen that one wire was burnt to a crisp then come to find out that the whole wire harness is toast from the side plug in through out the whole motor just about.

With this compression should I try and fix this problem or part her out?

What are the chances of having any good electrical components left out of this?

Is there a way to check these components (rectifier, coils, etc, etc) and what do I need to check them with?

 

[ThumbPkr]

Re: 68 or 69 Mercury 1000 Electrical problem

The Mercs of that era all had problems with the wiring harnesses deteriorating.You can still buy a new harness or you can rewire it yourself.
Based on the compression readings that you have published I would definately keep the engine to use for myself.It seems well worth the price of an FSM for reference.Ron G

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: 68 or 69 Mercury 1000 Electrical problem

I know where one wire harness is right now on Ebay but I can't afford it right now. But not all is lost I'm in no big rush for getting this motor up and running. I am totally new to mercs. Also wondering how hard would it be to wire it up myself, especially without a schematic. As I said some of them wire are burnt beyond recognition.

I wonder what was up with that year motor to have wiring problems?

I see that some of the parts are pretty expensive.

 

[j_martin]

Re: 68 or 69 Mercury 1000 Electrical problem

I know where one wire harness is right now on Ebay but I can't afford it right now. But not all is lost I'm in no big rush for getting this motor up and running. I am totally new to mercs. Also wondering how hard would it be to wire it up myself, especially without a schematic. As I said some of them wire are burnt beyond recognition.

I wonder what was up with that year motor to have wiring problems?

I see that some of the parts are pretty expensive.

The early vinyl wire insulations would deteriorate with age.

I got a Cd rom manual for inline and v6 mercury's online for about ten bucks or so that has all the wiring diagrams in it. I would keep an eye on eBay for an oem manual also.

I would bore-scope that top cylinder to see if there's any visible damage. It's the first to toast on cooling failure, but it might have just coked up the rings a bit in which case a good soaking with PBblaster, or sea foam would fix it.

If you're comfortable with wiring from a schematic, you could make your own harness.

hope it helps
John

 

[Laddies]

Re: 68 or 69 Mercury 1000 Electrical problem

Should be a diagram in your PMs

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: 68 or 69 Mercury 1000 Electrical problem

Thanks for the help guys. I know somebody that lives down the road who has a scope that he might let me use or might bring up to use personally to inspect the top cylinder. Which I can't blame him if he doesn't loan me the scope because they are high dollar devices.