Advice on selling a 2001 Mercury Motor That Has Been Sitting for Awhile

[Gardenia]

I wondered if anyone could give me some advice on selling my 2001 Mercury 75 HP motor. It has been sitting for at least two years. A man came to look at it today and hooked it up to his battery. He tried to check the compression but could not get it to turn over. He said that there is some sort of electrical problem also because the motor will not move from side to side at all. When he turned the key, there was a steady bell sound which he said means there is a problem and that you should not try to actually start the motor.

He said he could give me $500 for the motor for parts because of the above reasons and because he said the carburator is probably bad from sitting for over two years.

I wondered if this sounds correct to anyone. If the motor actually turned on, I was going to charge $1700. Because I don't know much about motors, I want to make sure what the man said sounds reasonable.

Thank you for any help or advice.

[Mint Buster]

First thing I would do is remove the spark plugs and try to turn the flywheel (at the top of the engine) by hand. You should probably also spray some penetrating oil into the cylinders through the spark plug hole. That will keep the piston rings from sticking to the cylinder walls.

Also, you don't know if the guy's battery was fully charged or what the capacity of it is/was. He could have had a weak battery. To me it sounds like he was trying to pull a fast one on you.

Another thing is you don't want to start an outboard engine out of the water. Not only do you risk overheating it but you will most likely chew up the rubber impeller for the water pump.

As far as the carburetor goes, that's anyone's guess. Who was the last person to run the engine? Was it run dry? Engine fogged? Are you sure it has a carb and is not a fuel injected engine? There should be a plate on the engine mount with the model # and serial #. I suggest you may want to locate that info and do a Google search and familiarize yourself with exactly what you have before you let it go cheap.

Hope that helps you some. Good luck.

[Gardenia]

Okay, thank you for your advice. I think I might have a mechanic come and look at it.

[goatfish]

The price difference is well worth the effort in doing a little study on what you have and how much it would cost you to get it fixed.