Anyone had the same issue or any ideas. I have a mercury 50 2 stroke 2008 model. It started cutting out pretty bad a couple weeks back. I ran a bottle of sea foam through it trying to clean it out. It seemed to get worse then better. Then last week I took it out and it ran fine. It started doing it again and died and left me stranded in the middle of lake ray bob. It cuts out when you give it throttle. It will start and idle fine till you give it gas. I'm outboard stupid so any help would be appreciated. Thanks

You will need the carbs rebuilt and drain gas possibly. Sea foam will not clean the carbs.

Gary Hughes
Diamond Sports Marine Rockwall

check the primer bulb and the orings at the fuel line connections.

I had similar problems on an old Evinrude 115 running premix. The shop replaced the powerpac but when I took it out on the lake it started cutting out. I had my 3 year old with me and it was getting worse by the minute. I didn't think we were going to make it 10 minutes back to the boat ramp. I called the shop from my cell phone while on the lake. He had me run on plane and when it starts cutting out, push the choke in. If pushing the choke in changes how the engine responds then it is most likely a fuel or carb issue. If it doesn't affect anything, then it is most likely a spark or timing issue. In my case, pushing the choke in didn't affect it cutting out but we couldn't figure out what the problem was.

We put the boat on trailer but left the engine in the water and took the engine cowling off. I ran the engine in forward so it was carrying a load but not moving anywhere. My engine was choking down and would not hit the upper rpms. We got to poking around on the wires and connections and the rpm suddenly shot up. The rpms at least tripled and the engine was screaming. We found one of the factory wire harness connections had gone bad. When we disconnected the harness, we could see one of the pins wasn't reaching all the way out and there were carbon burn marks from spark or something jumping across. The mechanic rewired around the harness and it sounds like a brand new engine. It runs great too.

The key is we found the problem just messing with it while it was running under load. You can't do this running across the lake because the bouncing of the boat can cause you to fall on the moving starter flywheel.

Sounds like bad fuel and you might need the carbs cleaned, fuel pump rebuilt, and new fuel line thats the new epa compliant line.

is it flooding at all?

Run it and check the spark plugs, if there wet it's flooding, I'm with everyone else though. Pime bulb, fuel filter, fuel pump, carbs. Just check one thing at a time starting with simple thing to more complex things

Thanks for all the input. It wound up being a faulty wiring harness. Thanks again. Guess I lucked out.

Nevermind. Just got it back from cabelas took it out and same thing. Stuck again. They suck

Also he stated 3 plugs were fouled

Hey give me a call

Gary Hughes
Diamond Sports Rockwall
972-722-7843

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