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Question, when I put my hand on the side of the motor I was shocked
Question, the other day, the boat did not start right up, but when it did it idled and then ran great. When I got home with the boat on the trailer, I was flushing the motor and when I put my hand on the side of the motor I was shocked.
I pulled the cowing off and then touched each of the spark plug wires, and was not shocked.
Any ideas as to what happen. Should I take it in for repairs?
I was considering change the spark plugs, figure that’s why it was hard to start.
You are getting a short / grounding to your cowling and this would be coming from any number of areas. This is most likely the cause of the poor starting. Unless there is an obvious area where you see exposed wire or a lose connection it could be a though one. Unless you are a knowledgeable electrician You will spend a lot of time trying to figure out what is shorting / grounding out.
In any case, I think I found the problem.
The harder starting was the result of the wrong spark plugs?
Well they where the right ones only they are listed as optional hotter ones. Being such it made the 75 Mercury harder to cold start. Replaced them with OEM standard NGK plugs and the Mercury fires right up with the touch of the key.
As to the cowing shocking me, I have not been able to get it to happen again. Could it of been static electric resulting from the water hose hocked to the motor while running?
Who knows, but I went through and made sure all the wires where tight, and lubricated them with anti corrosion spray.
I would love to hear from anyone who has had something similar happen.
Stick with the NGK's as they will be the best for your motor.
As for the shocking well it just might be one of those things.
I have never had it happen on an outboard however, while running my uncle's 34 Scarab I got zapped hard. It would only occur with one hand on the metal throttles, one hand on the metal of the steering wheel, and then touching your leg to support leg of the bolster seat. Yes, I had to test to see if it would happened again and yes stupid hurts. Once we shut down my uncle looked into it we found nothing and it would not happen again.
