Neil Mc
New member
Hi, My old Mercury 2.2hp 2 stroke has water coming out the tell tale but only for a few minutes then steam, then stops & hot ??
Many thanks, I'll try that.Welcome. Your old mercury needs a service. Not many parts. Take it to bits, clean and put back together
Thank you for that advice.Waterways salty, impeller suspect. Easy, as your first reply says.
Sounds like good advice so I'll give it a go, thank you.The cooling system for a small outboard seems to give more trouble than anything else. I have now bought a Honda air cooled for that reason.
Anyway as said don't give up it does sound like blockages in channels or bad impeller. Just rip it apart. ol'will
Sounds very much like this is the problem, many thanks for your advice and what to look out for - fingers crossed there's no drilling required ....The problem is that ripping apart is easier said than done on some older outboards. The stainless bolts seize in the alloy mouldings…. Heat, penetrating oil and patience and resorting to drilling and helicoils in extremis.
Hopefully it’ll all come apart easily though.
Two main areas to look at. Firstly the impeller at the bottom of the leg. Secondly the water cooling channels in the head. Sometimes the latter can be flushed out with a suitable acid solution. Sometimes they need to be scraped out as well. Others may advise.
PS. Welcome to the forums.
Hi Neil, many thanks for your advice, I will certainly go about taking the head off next. Power to the Mercs & Neil'sI have a Merc 2.5 now and that doesn't seem to be giving cooling water problems. The 2.2 I had previously did, though - I had to take off the cylinder head and rake out the white corrosion in the cooling water channels. Also, the little stainless steel cup that the water pump impeller revolves in got displaced by white corrosion and stopped the pump working properly. That also needed dismantling and cleaning out. I did end up with another Merc so they can't be all bad! Welcome from another Neil!
There’s an ol’ redneck from South Carolina who seems to crop up when I need a Mercury guru. His videos are for other rednecks, and easy to understand. And it’s all not for profit, he’s just a nice guy. What did we all do before youtube?The University of YouTube is very likely to have a choice of 'how to' videos
The impellor may need changing if this hasn't been done for a while - very simple on your engine as its just behind the prop.(See the article in the latest PBO magazine) If its not that, then the head needs to be dismantled and the water channels cleaned out.
I have a similar engine (Mercury 2.5hp) and although I was a bit timid about taking it apart, it proved pretty easy. Once cleaned it worked well.