"tony thomas" wrote in message
news:s3T9d.217234$D%.129061@attbi_s51...
My comments:
As for the carbs, fuel gelling in the carbs is not covered by any
warrenty. If you only had 16 hours on it, then you were not using it very
much and that was the problem. However, there is no reason to replace the
carbs. Just clean them and they should have been fine. Sounds like the
dealer does not know how to clean carbs.


Having fuel "gel" or otherwise go bad in the carb is not unusual. What I
would consider a reasonable designed carburetor would not be damaged by
this, but you would need to clean it out.

In my case the carburetors were damaged. I can imagin that it was the gas
going bad that contributed to it, but I stand by my position that the
carburetors should not have been damaged.

When the service shop told me that the carburetors needed to be replaced I
didn't beleive it. I had them try rebuilding a set anyway. It didn't help.
I talked to the Mercury Customer service people directly. They basically
said that the carburetors were not rebuildable! They would sell a gasket
kit to an authorized service center and that is about it. They rattled off
some lame excuse about EPA requirements. I can belive that EPA requirements
put a burden on the carburetor design, but it has to be a design decision on
Mercury parts to solf the EPA problems by making carburetors that can't be
properly rebuilt.

I am sure that the fact that the carbs can't be rebuilt is the reason that
the replacement carburetors were in short supply. One of the customer
service respresentative told me that they had had an "unexpectedly high
demand" for the carburetors.

Bottom line: Mecury designed their carburetors using a very low grade
aluminum castings and low grade brass inserts. I guess they hadn't
considered the possibility that the engines would sit all winter without
being used.


Rod McInnis