Hard crank no start

[Roen]

I own a 1994 mercury force 120. I took it out yesterday and it was running good. 10 min into the ride, it just shut down. It will not start. Sounds as if it was a bad battery. Cranking hard. It is getting fuel. If I pull the plugs, it will crank over as normal I added the plugs one by one and when I got to the third and forth, it would crank hard. I changed plugs and. I change. Lower unit is free spinning in neutral. Im at a resort on day one and am sol. Please help if you can. Any ideas would be helpful and very much appreciated.

 

[Roen]

Re: Hard crank no start

I've talked to the resident expert and once we have any 2 plugs in. It's cranking seems off. He thinks either it's the timing or maybe I have a cracked a cylinder wall or something

 

[Jiggz]

Re: Hard crank no start

It sounds like a worn out starter or at least a weak starter which probably needs cleaning or the wiring connections at least needs cleaning.
The question is when the engine died, was it at idle? Or was it running above idle and just suddenly died. I'm thinking that maybe it it was idling it just died due to low idle setting and coincidentally the weak starter problem popped up at the same time. If this is the case, check your starter wiring (big wires not the small starter relay coil wiring) connections first, disconnect the battery and fully charge it. Disconnect one at a time the starter wiring connections especially with the starter relay and the starter and also the ground connection to the engine block. Clean and reconnect them tight and try again.