Anyone ever do one and have some advice for me? To make a long story short for many years ive been a shore fisherman, i recently had a 12' boat and 1969 merc model 110 given to me for a mear 100 bucks. Anyway, dropped the engine off at a guys house who works on em, and he told me it was froze up and the water pump was cracked. Now i work as a automotive technician at a dealership, and to me it didnt seem froze up when i turned it over by hand, and a water pump doesnt sound like a hard job, but than again i have no experience working on outboards. He wanted 350 bucks to put the water pump housing on. I figure i can do it myself since a kit form www.oldmercs.com is only 70 bucks. Do it , let the other guy do it, or just get rid of the engine...whats your guys opinion.....BTW ive been lurking on this forum for a few months now, and this seemed like the best place to ask this type of question. thanks for any input.

My first concern would be getting the motor running and not worry about the water pump right at the moment. You can pull the lower unit, get it running and then feed water from a hose to the tube connecting to the water pump output to run it long enough to check it out. Very good chance you will be throwing good money after bad though. If you're paying someone to work on the motor, you have already spent more than it's worth but to answer your question, replacing the water pump is a fairly easy job. Drop the lower unit and it's bolted right on top with the driveshaft going through the middle of it.

Most like though, if the motor has been sitting a long time, rust has gotten to the inside and it's 100% junk. If you take it appart, it takes a special setup to put it back together because all six rods have to be bolted to the crank with pistons and rings attached, and then the whole rotating assy drop into the block as an assembly, meaning all six sets of rings have to be compressed at one time. Those old Thunderbolt distributor ignition system worked ok new but not so great now. Just remember the plug wires screw in. Personnaly, they would have had to give me the $100 to get rid of it for them. Sorry, they are just too old to mess with. Oh, if you do get it going, you will need to run high octane gas in it.

Holy cow batman!!!! I just noticed you said a "12 foot" boat, and you're planning on putting that motor on the back. That motor weights over 300 pounds and is probably about five times the hp of what should ever be put on the back of a 12' boat.

Well the guy had it runnign last year he said. But getting it running would be number one priority. maybe ill take some compression readings first.

Read the last comment on my other post.

For good information on those old inline six merc go here http://forums.screamandfly.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=20 sign up and then make a post to Raceman with your question. He has a thing about those old mercs. There are several others there that will be more than willing to give you a helping hand when it comes to those things.

He's also the one with the 134.6 mph STV

Holy cow batman!!!! I just noticed you said a "12 foot" boat, and you're planning on putting that motor on the back. That motor weights over 300 pounds and is probably about five times the hp of what should ever be put on the back of a 12' boat.

Hahaha man its a model 110, 9.8hp hahahah misunderstanding, but funny. ;D

OK, that fits a little better.  I was thinking the inline 6, 1100 with 110 hp, my screwup, guess that's what I get for thinking when I'm not used to it.   Still would work on getting it running first.   No way would I pay that much to put a water pump on that motor.  Being a 10 hp, it's actually worth more that the inline 6 but still not worth what he's wanting just to put the pump on it.  You can find newer, good running 9.9s for that amount of money.

Check the spark, if it has a good spark, clean the carb and fuel pump and purge the fuel system.  Those motors are fairly easy to work on, if your a mechanic, you should have no problem.  Get you one of those Clymer's manuals for that model and it will give you good enough info to do most of what you'll need.  Not much to the carbs, if you can build a Q-jet, this one would be a breeze, just make sure all the orifices are clean.   That would make you good motor to get your feet wet and learn something about two strokes.   Just don't apply your fourstroke logic.  The don't work anywhere near the same, actually just about totally opposite.  For instance, intake valve on 4 stroke opens when piston starts down, two stroke intake reed valves are forced closed when piston starts down.   The air in the crankcase is compressed as the piston comes down until the dome clears the intake port and then the charge is pushed in under pressure.   Reeds valves don't open until piston starts back up gain, closing off intake ports and pulling a fresh charge into crankcase.  

Im all over two strokes no worries, built plenty of dirt bikes and 4 wheelers. Ill drag it into work and tear into it saturday. Thanks for some sound advice.

I have a '63 Mercury 110 (9.8 hp) and I just replaced the impeller.  The parts were dirt cheap and I had a friend do the work.  The engine runs strong and is working well.