"Chris" wrote

This motor has been out of water, and sitting for much of the last 8 or so
years. Its a 72 80hp 4 cylinder. The guy I bought it from says that
likely
the impeller needs to be changed as it would have dried out... Would that
be
correct? Any ideas? The motor was perfect when it was last used 8+ years
ago...

I don't want to run it too much until the water gets figured out. From
what
I'm guessing without looking into too much detail yet, I have to take the
lower end (gearcase) off to get to this impeller.

My take would be to change the impellor and check over the water pump,
regardless of what the tell tale was doing - just an important routine thing
to do, especially with an older motor. So do that regardless. Buy yourself
a shop manual to guide you. I did my first impellor this spring with a
Clymer's generic Merc manual and it went fine. A real merc shop manual
might be better. If you're not into it, it's not an expensive (in boating
terms!) thing for a mechanic to do - if you can get them to get to it this
time of year!

On the other hand, my big outboard has constant tell tale issues -
intermittent clogging. At first, it freaked me out and I'd always stop and
trouble shoot to make sure the water was cooling the engine. It always
involved just blowing (by mouth) out the tell tale line or reaming it with a
thin wire. But it was a hassle. Then I installed a pressure gauge - it was
fairly easy and I just don't worry about the tell tale anymore. That could
be an option for the longer term if you have chronic tell tale issues.

Cam