Mercury 850 Ignition

[udunit1966]

My son and I are repairing some boats we got real cheap..he's wanting to fix & sell to raise some $$ for the 1st car thing.. and we have the following question:

Does anyone know if it's possible to replace the trigger on a 1972 85 HP Merc - ser# 7017083 - with a point style distributor. The testing method for the switch box is to touch the white wire to ground and remove it again while testing for high voltage at the coil. This works good but it appears that nothing goes when the trigger is reattached and the engine is cycled. So in my mind, if I could remove the big $$ trigger and replace it with a 4 cylinder distributor with a set of points in it I would no longer need the trigger. Sounds simple enough but will it work?

 

[Laddies]

Re: Mercury 850 Ignition

There were no pt. type dist. built for the 4 cyl engines

 

[udunit1966]

Re: Mercury 850 Ignition

I realize that a point style distributor wasn't made for these...just looking to see if a backyard mechanic has tried one and made it work. We have a 70 HP Chrysler that has this style but it's our working motor so we don't want to try to retrofit it to try.

 

[Chris1956]

Re: Mercury 850 Ignition

Those motors were designed to run with CDI Ignition. I am not sure if they would run well with a battery-points-coil ignition. There is also no conventional spark plug listed for them, They use surface gap plugs.