Mercury Oil Mixing Failure

[truewind]

On posts regarding [failures of the oil mixing system used in Mercury two-cycle classic outboard engines], it has been stated that Mercury customer service will help non-dealer and non-mechanic call-in customers find part numbers, will sell the parts, and even send instructions on how to [perform the installation of these parts]. Well, no more. I called and was told they no longer help out for liability reasons due to customers botching repairs and blaming Mercury.

There is a Quicksilver kit, available from on-line auction websites and elsewhere, that has a shaft, two screws, and an O-ring. That's four parts. Mercury customer service told me the job took six to eight parts, but would not tell my anything else, and they said I should contact a local dealer to help me out and order parts.

I called a local dealer-mechanic, and they had no idea what to do and could not find any parts for this job. I asked about service bulletins and even pointed out numbers 94-6, 96-10, and even 97-18 “Oil Injection Gear Failures - 135 thru 200 - 2.0L, 2.4L, & 2.5L V6” which should deal directly with this problem, but Mercury dealer had no clue.

Does anyone have a copy of [Mercury service bulletin] 97-18 you can post?

I have a 1997 Mercury 175XR2 Sport Jet, which is just an outboard powerhead on top of a jet pump unit, with a non-working oiling system and loud warning beeps. I performed all the tests in the manual. It seems I have the plastic gear failure; no oil comes out of the line from the oil injection pump to the fuel pump when the engine is running.

Thus I figure the plastic "gear-driven" is stripped. I have not removed the oil assembly yet, but do I have to?

What is wrong with leaving it in and premixing?

Other posts have said the plastic bits will do nothing to the metal engine and no one has described a non-invasive method to get them out.

Also, the Oil Block-off Kit has a long shaft that appears to take the place of the gear, implying that I can take the gear out. But I was under the impression that the gear had to be left in. If the original plastic gear can be left in, why is there a replacement shaft in the kit?

Does the original gear easily lift out of the hole?

If it does, why can't I just replace the original plastic gear with a new metal one?

Like this: http://www.marineengine.com/newparts/pa ... ER43-14563

Another thing, one of the tests I did was for a defective motion sensor in the oil injection pump. The service manual said that output voltage should peak at 5-Volts ± 1-Volt, and then drop to less than 1.0-Volt during every two revolutions of the engine. When I did this, it only went from 5-Volts to 4-Volts.

The manual said "should" not "must," so am I OK there?

Or does it really matter since my plastic gear appears to be stripped and I might take out the motion sensor anyway?

Thank you very much. Any help is appreciated.

[truewind]

Here is the block off kit available through various sellers:

http://parts.promarineusa.com/productde ... /1/1/43456

[truewind]

Thank you editor.

I was confused. The gear inside the case attached to the crank is the plastic one and the driven gear extending up into the oil pump has always been metal.

I will buy the block off kit and see what happens.

[jimh]

Hi TRUEWIND. I think you know more about this retro-fit than anyone else who has posted about it. I am interested to know what you find.

The Mercury outboard engines with these plastic gears in their oil-mixing pump drive line are getting to be quite old. I think the prefix in the service bulletin numbering must be the last digits of the year the bulletin came out, thus c.1994 is the epoch when these parts and procedures were first introduced. Since 22-years have elapsed, it is not surprising that the present day staff at Mercruy Marine customer service may no longer be able to provide all the support and information necessary for complying with those service bulletins.

[OutrageV20]

Run the engine on pre-mixed fuel. I've never redone a Mercury and installed a new oil injection system. The plastic gear is the achilles heel in my opinion, and a lousy design.

Block it off, remove the metal gear, take a look to see if any pieces can be easily removed with the metal gear out. You should be able to look into the engine and see the gear. Then install kit and go run the thing. You can block off all the oil injection related items like the alarms and the sensors. Remove the oil tank above the carburetors. Then run it.

[Changed topic to begin a comparative discussion of oil mixing systems. Please start a new threat for that topic. This thread is seeking advice specifically about recovering from the failure of the plastic gear in a Mercury system.--jimh]

[jimh]

What is wrong with leaving [the damaged plastic gear rod] in [place] and premixing?

I see nothing wrong with the plan to revert to using pre-mixed oil-gasoline fuel. As for leaving in place the damaged plastic gear rod, I think the existence of an inexpensive cap-off kit suggests that the gear should be removed. Since I have never done any work on a Mercury engine of this type to remove the gear, I cannot offer any advice on how difficult it would be. As I said, I think you now know more about this than most readers here.

I've never redone a Mercury and installed a new oil injection system.

I asked my local Mercury Marine dealer, who has been in business with Mercury for over 50 years, if they had ever installed a new Mercury oil injection system to repair a failed one. He told me they had never done that. They always advise the customer to revert to using pre-mixed oil-gasoline fuel.

Block it off, remove the metal gear, take a look to see if any pieces can be easily removed with the metal gear out.

I don't quite understand what you component in the Mercury oil-mixing system you are recommended should be blocked off. Please elaborate on "it".

[truewind]

Thank you for the help everyone. I received the block off kit and will post results when I have a chance install it, hopefully this weekend. Unfortunately, I can't keep the boat where I live, so it's not easy to work on her.

[ljlbud]

I have 1995 Mercury 175 EFI. After running an hour or so [the engine sounds] the oil alarm (Beep Beep Beep) until I slow down. Once [engine speed is reduced] the alarm stops. About five years ago I installed the Marine Solutions electronic oil injection system. This has happened the last two trips when I have run for over an hour. Any help would be appreciated.

[jimh]

I looked for some resources about the Marine Solutions replacement oil pump, but I think their website and web domain were abandoned. Their website now appears to be run by some business that is completely unrelated to marine replacement oil pumps. I was able to find an archive of their website using the internet way-back machine. See

https://web.archive.org/web/20070807230316/http://www.marinesolutionswi.com/

I don't have the particulars of the retro-fit offered by Marine Solutions. But it sounds like their retrofit only replaced the driving mechanism to the original oil pump, and left in use all of the original Mercury sensors, the alarm system central module, and the aural alert sounder. In that case you should consider that you may have a defect in one of those original Mercury components. For example, there are many reports of failure of the alarm module component. (See below.)

As a general rule for diagnosis of any alarm, there are four possible situations:

--the alarm system is working properly, and it has detected a real alarm

--the alarm system is not working properly, there is a defect with a sensor, and the sensor has falsely signaled an alarm

--the alarm system is not working properly, there is a defect with the central processor, and the central processor has falsely signaled an alarm

--the alarm system, its sensors, and its central processor are working, but the aural alert sounder is defective, and it is sounding, even though there is no real alarm

You have to deduce which of the four situations applies in your case.

Diagnosis of alarms (BEEP BEEP BEEP) from Mercury engines is the subject of a very large number of prior discussions. You can located these discussions using the following search link:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=site%3Acontinuouswave.com%2Fubb%2FForum3&q=BEEP+BEEP+BEEP+Mercury+Oil&btnG=Google+Search

Good older threads to read are:

http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/009179.html

http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/010414.html
[This one highly recommended.]

A good article to refer to is

http://continuouswave.com/whaler/refere ... ction.html

One way to deduce if there is an actual loss of oil to the engine is by observing for the presence of reduced smoke in the exhaust or for no ongoing decline in the oil level in the reservoirs. And, of course, the opposite: if there is still blue-smoke and the oil level is going down, there is some amount of oil being injected. WIth your new injection pump, I am not certain how you would adjust the amount of oil injection at a particular speed.

There is almost no end to components that can cause a Mercury oil-injection system to sound an alarm which is really a false alarm. Previous reports have found defects in:

--the alarm sounder

--the alarm module

--the oil flow sensor

--the oil level sensors

--the oil level floats

--the wiring that connects all of these components

Based on the very large number of reports of the BEEP BEEP BEEP problem and the extremely wide variety of defective components eventually found to be the real cause, it is not possible with any sort of certainty to tell you what exactly is causing the problem in your engine. No one can tell you, "Hey, if you get BEEP BEEP BEEP then it MUST be this..." That is just not possible, due to the many possible causes.

If you do resolve this problem, please post an update so that your experience may guide others who are trying to maintain these older engines.

Regarding the MARINE SOLUTION Electronic Oil Injection replacement pump, here is a bit of history of the company from their old website archive:

Marine Solutions was started in 2001 by Robert Kachelek. Robert is a former director of outboard service for Mercury Marine and the president of Marine Solutions.

While working for Mercury Marine, Robert identified a problem with the oil gear on Mercury Marine outboard [enginges]. Based on the need for a fix, an Electronic Oil Injection System or EOI for Mercury V-1 outboard engines was developed.

Electronic Oil Injection provides both a preventative and curative solution to the long standing and continuing Mercury Marine V-6 oil gear problem. With WOI, the Mercury oil pump is driven by a reliable electric motor and controlled by an advanced electronic computer to assure accurate oil delivery at all engine speeds.