New boat, host of problems

[ruf1967]

I believe several of the boaters on that website are merc mechanics or have been at one time.

 

[Weave]

I believe several of the boaters on that website are merc mechanics or have been at one time.

+1 There are several mechanics on there. Don S is certainly one of them.
Great tech info there.....Not quite the sense of humor as CSR though:smt038

 

[texasrider]

I'm currently experiencing what sounds like a similar issue, I have a 98 190 with alpha drive. It only happens when I first get out. I don't think it is actually popping out of gear, but over revving due to cavitation. I pull back on the throttle and it is still in gear. I usually at this point throw it in reverse and back into drive and it is fine the rest of the day. Where I put in is full of weeds so I had just attributed it to that. It doesn't always do this maybe 50 percent of the time.

gruz1, I've got a 97 185. I was testing out a used, lower pitched prop to see if i liked it and my boat started acting similarly. I could idle around all day long but as soon as I throttled down to try and plane the revs would go through the roof and the boat wouldn't go anywhere. It turns out the hub was spun. It may be worth it to try a different prop and see if that helps. Good luck.

 

[gruz1]

Thanks, I did try a SS prop and it didn't exhibit the same problem but I only tried it the 1 time because it didn't work well with my boat, the other problem is I keep hitting rocks with the prop that may be bad so now I don't have either to try. When they reworked it the first time they said the hub looked fine. I think if the hub was bad it would do it all the time. Regardless I will be getting the SS reworked this winter down to a 22 from a 23 so I probably won't be able to diagnose the problem until next year.

Thanks,
Mike G.