Inspecting 2002 Tracker 125 HP Outboard

[flyingscott]

Maybe the comparison is not fair but my old Merc 50 hp with 4 cylinder trolls and idles much better than my force 85hp 3 cylinder, it simply sound and feels smoother and more even, but I'm also aware that force is not as good

It would be a better comparison a 2 cylinder OMC 50 idles every bit as well as a 4 cylinder merc. And has a better torque curve. But we are off topic because Texas Mark got his feelings hurt. Let's go back to the OPs original post.

 

[redneck joe]

Good advise, I bought this boat with 2 friends, so we'll make the first run together, unfortunately I'm the only one that can make any fix but at least the pressure of my wife and kid will not be there.

Two fre8nds that can't fix but can paddle? Yer good.

Im compulsive on old boats that have sat for a long time. Well, hopefully I'm over that now as I promised the wife....

Do remember as they get woke up over the next year or so things may break since they had not been used.

 

[redneck joe]

Maybe the comparison is not fair but my old Merc 50 hp with 4 cylinder trolls and idles much better than my force 85hp 3 cylinder, it simply sound and feels smoother and more even, but I'm also aware that force is not as good as Mercury.

I love my 50 merc. Wish is was a 100 merc but otherwise I'm in love.

 

[Texasmark]

Well I bet you I can get a 50s OMC 25 hp to idle better than you can't get a 50s Mercury 4 cylinder 25 hp to idle.

As I recall Mercury made 2 cylinder 20 hp engines that outran everything in their class and the classic 40 HP which a friend of mine had, and later the 30 hp 4 cylinder of which I had one on a used boat I bought. All support what I said.
Edit: Recalling their green, clamshell cowl, gray LU, I recall their 25 in their early days....that was before my boating experience days...Oh and my FIL had a '58 Rude. Thing about those 2 cal. OMCs is that they had soft engine to clamp bracket rubber mounts so that the engine could shake back and forth when idling (alternate firing twin) and not shake the boat. When PT came to being they had to toughen up those mounts. I had a '58 18 HP Rude I bought later on.

 

[Texasmark]

It would be a better comparison a 2 cylinder OMC 50 idles every bit as well as a 4 cylinder merc. And has a better torque curve. But we are off topic because Texas Mark got his feelings hurt. Let's go back to the OPs original post.

Nothing wrong with my feelings. Just posting events in my life as they happened!

 

[flyingscott]

As I recall Mercury made 2 cylinder 20 hp engines that outran everything in their class and the classic 40 HP which a friend of mine had, and later the 30 hp 4 cylinder of which I had one on a used boat I bought. All support what I said.
Edit: Recalling their green, clamshell cowl, gray LU, I recall their 25 in their early days....that was before my boating experience days...Oh and my FIL had a '58 Rude. Thing about those 2 cal. OMCs is that they had soft engine to clamp bracket rubber mounts so that the engine could shake back and forth when idling (alternate firing twin) and not shake the boat. When PT came to being they had to toughen up those mounts. I had a '58 18 HP Rude I bought later

JUST WOW, I don't even know how to reply to those "opinions"

 

[lgaytan]

So finally we went to test our new boat by our own, I started inspecting the electrical stuff, one battery was dead but it seems that the issue is the onboard charger, I charged the battery with another charger and seemed ok, next I checked the bilge pump and live wells that according to the past owner didn't worked but they were fine, the boat has a "power" button that needs to be on for them to work I can't imagine that the owner didn't knew that but anyways I just turned it on and it worked, then went to the ramp to launch and the motor didn't started!!! Turned the key on and nothing happened, first I thought battery was dead although I just checked them, had to take the boat out of the ramp to check not making the story longer the stater solenoid wasn't working, I jumped wires to force start and it worked, then it just worked normally after that with the key , probably that will fail soon I don't know any ways after that everything worked just fine, we just had a rough start.

 

[lgaytan]

This motor has the oil mixing system, i have read that It Is a controversial discussion if this is reliable or not, I personally don't like the idea this might fail someday with out notice and screw up the whole motor, I have seen some videos on YouTube of people bypassing the system but I wonder if I can just use mixed gas 50:1 and don't put any oil to the reservoir, will the motor be damaged? Or other thing I was thinking is use mixed gas in the main tank and fill the oil reservoir add well with mixed gas, could that work?

 

[flyingscott]

Yes you can mix the fuel. The 3 and 4 cylinder Mercs had really good systems.

 

[racerone]

Perhaps remove the pump to inspect the plastic gear on the crankshaft.

 

[lgaytan]

I really don't want to start messing around in this motor, system seems to work, I was just wondering if maybe just premixing the gas was possible with out bypassing or doing anything to this system.

 

[racerone]

Remove outlet from the oil pump.--Plug the hose.---Use a piece of hose " tee " pump outlet it into the pump inlet.-----Mix 50:1 in the fuel tank

 

[Texasmark]

This motor has the oil mixing system, i have read that It Is a controversial discussion if this is reliable or not, I personally don't like the idea this might fail someday with out notice and screw up the whole motor, I have seen some videos on YouTube of people bypassing the system but I wonder if I can just use mixed gas 50:1 and don't put any oil to the reservoir, will the motor be damaged? Or other thing I was thinking is use mixed gas in the main tank and fill the oil reservoir add well with mixed gas, could that work?

If you mix the fuel at a pint to 6 gallons of gas before the oil tank runs dry that ought to work.
I disabled my 2002 90 by unscrewing 3 screws holding the oil pump in place, temporarily removed the pump end of one hose.....to get the pump out, pulled the pump out, grabbed the drive gear and pulled it straight out accompanied by the shaft. Put the hose I removed back on, stuck the pump back where it was, installed the 3 screws and used that boat like that for years. I had oil left in the oil tank but it stayed there because the mechanism that pumps it out of the tank into the fuel line was disabled....never had a problem with that.

Be sure you do your premix BEFORE you disable the pump.

I am a senior citizen and my memory isn't as sharp as it once was so adjacent to the fuel tank fill port, I wrote on the gunwale of the boat, adjacent to that port the following: 1 pt. oil - 6 gal gas. Never forgot to put the oil in.