Hello, John Talley here with boats.net. Today we're going to be taking a look
at our 40 horsepower Mercury Tracker engine. Now we knew before we picked this thing up
that the previous owner had said that it had an issue... probably
low on compression on one of the cylinders. So let's get this cover off,
take a peek with some diagnostic tools, and see what's going on. So if you're ready, let's go.
All right, pretty simple: let's pop this latch and take a peek.
First indicator, let's pull the plugs and see what they look like. All right...
All right guys, this one is really dry on number one so
I think that's where our damage is going to be.
Number two looks okay, but not great.
Kind of doubt we're going to be doing a compression
test on it. Let's see if she'll even spin over.
Well,
that's never a good sign.
She is definitely locked down, so...
I know we're going to go ahead and pull the power head and open it up,
but let's take a look inside with our borescope so we can get an idea of what's going on. See
if this is even remotely salvageable. So let's take a peek inside. Door number one: oh yeah.
That my friends
looks like a needle bearing. So that is telling me that
that piston is not going to be removed easily. A lot of scoring going on.
You can see where it just bounced it right in the center
and eventually caught it on one of the ports and just dug straight in. So that would be
why we can't turn over. Let's take a look at number two, see if it's got any damage.
A little bit of scoring, but it did not cut loose yet
but probably well on its way. All right guys, now we know what we're facing,
so we need to determine, well, is the crankshaft usable, are the connecting rods bent,
a lot of things we don't know just by looking at the top end. So let's get it removed, break it
down, and see what we really have to work with. All right guys, let's get off that cowling, and
there's basically just one bolt that goes through and it's an eight millimeter on either side.
All right guys, we have that cover out of the way, then we've got three bolts on either side.
But before we pull those, let's go ahead and get a few things disconnected like the the telltale,
and one take off the the oil reservoir-- just to make it a little bit easier to deal with
to get it off and plus, it's completely full and I don't want to make a mess out of that.
So let's get this out of the way, get a couple of things disconnected, then we'll drop those bolts
and then lift the power head off. The way I'm going to do the oil reservoir is just
disconnect it from down at the pump, and it's just a zip tie that's holding it in place.
There we go. Now to get the hose off I typically use a set of needle nose,
go all the way down on it from the outside at the nipple itself,
and kind of twist it just a little bit just to break that seal loose. And now it should release.
There we go.
Feed this up here just to make sure it stays above
the level at the top.
Now let's get these two bolts out of the top and lift this reservoir out of the way.
All right, let's see...
I need a third hand. Yeah i put a lot in on it. There you go. That's Garrett. That's my extra arm.
All right let's go find a safe place to put this where it won't make a mess.
Let's go and remove our telltale line. Once again, just a zip tie,
but do be careful when you go to remove it because that fitting down there is
plastic and if you're too aggressive with it, it could snap it. After that, we'll remove this
ground strap-- looks like just a possibly a seven millimeter, maybe an eight-- and then
I believe we're going to need to disconnect the trim switch on the side. At that point,
we can take out those bolts then lift her off. Once again, squeeze it, kind of break it loose.
And it is on there good. What do you expect when rubber is
20 years old? So I believe this is a 2002, or 2002 or 2003 engine.
All right there we go. That's a seven or an eight.
It may be a seven, but an eight got it.
Whenever possible, I'll try to put a bolt back
in its original place just so it's easier to keep up with.
And I'm also doing the trim relays. They need to be disconnected.
It's all color-coded, but if you ever get nervous about... "I am not sure i'm going
to be able to remember how things go," get out your camera, take a picture. That way you can
reference back to it. All right. I believe this is the ground that's going to the trim motor.
All right, let's take out those main bolts.
So...
All right guys, this one was a little bit scary to pop loose. What I ended up doing is just putting a
10 millimeter wrench down here at the base where I'd have something to pry against because you do
not want to pry against this, because you're going to break it. So we were able to get a pry bar
right in here. There we go it popped a little bit scary, but hey, she's uh, she's going to be ready
to come off here in a second. All right guys, we're getting ready to remove this. According
to the manual, put in a lifting hook and then lift it out. I'm gonna see if I can just he-man lift it
and if not, then I'll go grab the cherry picker. So depending on how good your back is, you may or
may not want to try this yourself. I'm going to go get cherry picker. I am not doing this to myself.
All right guys, that's going to wrap this video up. Well as you can probably guess, we're going to
start the next video by tearing this thing apart. And if you'd like to see that happen, why don't
you go and hit that subscribe button, that way you'll be notified when we drop that next video.
Well listen, if you need any parts for your boat, why don't you come see us at boats.net
and we can get you taken care of. If you have any questions or comments about this video, leave
them in the section below and I'll do my best to answer them. We just want to say thank you for
shopping here with us at boats.net, and we will see you in the next video. Y'all have a great day.