Thanks. Sorry there was an issue to post so I copied my post into a word document and pasted back, somehow the font became so tiny. The followings are quotes of my original post.
Yes. I had the muff on all the times. Don’t know why it overheated. Regarding to stall, I may have a stiff shift cable.
I couldn’t find any front plug so I opened the big hose in the front and pour in antifreeze until pink shows up at the drain and even at the return (after close the drain plugs).
Also tried to drain the PS cooler, but is there is plug or open a hose? Thanks
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Engine SN: 0L063218, how many drain plugs do I have, I can only find 4, two each side for block and exhaust. Cannot find the supposed to be the easiest one on the front. Is it possible I may just have only 4 plugs?
Also I tried to spray fogging oil while engine is idle (temp is already in mid range), instead of killing the engine, the engine temp went up quite a bit and triggered the alarm. so I turned off the engine immediately. Is this normal? I found One black cable not connected to anything near the carb. I dont know if its related to the issue.
In last couple weeks, my boat stalled a few times while I tried to put it in gear from Neutral, or accelerate. I thought it was the bad fuel (2yrs from previous owner, I just bought it) or battery. I will also try to check the fuel line or fuel filter, or maybe the shift cable (all possible reason from my search online). But these will be done through the winter in garage.
These have a switch on the shift/throttle linkage, used to briefly kill the spark when shifting- mercruiser has clutch dogs, which are the reason these make noise while going from neutral to forward, reverse or whatever. If the cables stretch, the adjustment will no longer be correct. Disconnect the shift cable and shift it manually- if it works the way it should, adjust the cable.
My guess is that the thermostat has seen better days. Get a replacement that has a small hole in it- this is called 'fail-safe'.
Make a Winterizing rig so you can draw anti-freeze through the raw water pump- it will lubricate the impeller, fill the oil cooler and if done correctly, it will get into the whole engine.
The following would be a great way to handle winterizing boats if you have friends who might want to do this in a much easier way, share the cost and get it done far better than pouring the anti-freeze into a hose.
When I worked for a boat dealer, I bought a large plastic Rubbermaid tub that held about 50 gallons and had a barrel of anti-freeze that was rated for -90 F. Since I was working on stern-drives and ski boats with direct drive, I needed to be able to supply the liquid through the muff or a hose that connected to the intake side of the raw water pump of the engine. I used a bilge pump to provide pressure at the water inlet of the stern-drives and dipped the 1-1/4" hose to the direct drive engines into the tub- a good impeller will draw it into the engine quickly and it was an easy way to determine the condition of the raw water pump, or find that the oil cooler was clogged.
Run the engine on the anti-freeze, not water. Once the thermostat opens, run it for another 30 seconds, fog it and shut it off. There's nowhere for water to hide when it's being cooled with anti-freeze and you don't need to disconnect any hoses, remove the thermostat or any of that stuff. We had a refractometer to check the burst temperature, but if the anti-freeze hasn't been diluted by water from too many engines, there should be no reason to worry. A good way to avoid dilution is to drain the block before starting the procedure.
If you get a group together to buy the supplies, you can save a lot of money.
