1998 Mercury 200 EFI Mechanical Damage Rebuild

[Princeton_Man]

I wanna be there when you fire it up!

[Bigwrench]

I wanna be there when you fire it up!

I was thinking of firing it up first on the muffs first to see how it does here before taking it to the lake. Hopefully I will be able to do that today or in the next couple days at most. It has been raining here all morning but let up some so there may be hope for today still.

[Lipripper]

I was thinking of firing it up first on the muffs first to see how it does here before taking it to the lake. Hopefully I will be able to do that today or in the next couple days at most. It has been raining here all morning but let up some so there may be hope for today still.

Yelp Rick better to test it before you get to the lake.

[Oldfart9999]

You have to be breathing a bit easier now that you're closing in on it. Looking good Rick!
Rodney

[Bigwrench]

You have to be breathing a bit easier now that you're closing in on it. Looking good Rick!
Rodney

Yep it's getting close but it will have to wait I guess lol. It has rained here all day long. Stopped for about an hour. I went outside and uncovered the engine, started hanging wiring and it started raining again lol. Gave up on today

[cojab]

The suspense on this is killing me.
I can't even imagine how your dealing with this!!

[Bigwrench]

Started back on the Mercury last night, got the majority of the wiring "hung"

a lot of rerouting and checking and double checking with my reference photos !

There are a lot of wires on these things so if you attempt this take a gazillion photos !!!
Lost a spacer so had to get creative



Worked like a charm 

Box almost empty !!

It's definitely a mess lol

[jprism]

When you are finished with all the wiring will you be able to start the motor without the bottom end attached?

[Bigwrench]

When you are finished with all the wiring will you be able to start the motor without the bottom end attached?

I'm gonna put it one before starting.  Not sure if you could safely due to the water pump being on the lower unit and water passages and exhaust going through it

[Lipripper]

Rick it's getting there 

[Oldfart9999]

Ahhh, shade tree mechanic, aint got what we need, don't buy it, make it, cheaper, better, time saver.
Rodney

[Bigwrench]

Seriously cant wait to get it done now. Everything keeps getting in the way though 
Tonight I have to rebuild my Neighbors Rear diff on his Cobra Stang , Tomorrow is Baseball Practice (Grayson was nominated for the All Star Team) 2-3 hours there for sure ! Maybe Friday or definitely Saturday now LOL
This is the tedious part of the rebuild, I constantly have to keep going back and forth between the photos and the motor routing and rerouting the harnesses and getting it just right. I have over 700 photos LOL

[jprism]

No rest for the weary


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Terry G]

You need to use your new GoPro Hero 4 Silver to record the start up.

[Bigwrench]

You need to use your new GoPro Hero 4 Silver to record the start up.

Yep ! That thing is slick and twice the camera the hero3 is ! Played around with it the other night for about 30 minutes , has the LCD back pack too ! Great deal for sure.

[Bigwrench]

After a 4 hour football camp for Holston_Slayer (Ya'll pray for me and Momma .... This boy is now in Baseball,Soccer,Football and Basketball - we are run ragged lol)

and a cookout for the kids and parents , fitting of uniforms it's back to wiring this beast up , it is very important to get all the wires hooked up to the correct location as you can imagine and even with over 700 photos (200-300 before photos) it's still a PITA ! Wiring the switch boxes is tricky and of course routing the wires and tying everything up tight so it won't rub or move is equally as important .

Buy a lot of wire ties , we bought 200 8" black OUTDOOR ties for like $6   Make sure they are rated for outdoor use !!!

There are 2 switch boxes mounted one on top of the other. The bottom box is to control 2,4 & 6 coils.

They are identical and the wire terminals are marked but the trick comes in as to which set of wires you want to go to which switch box , you don't want your stator wires on the wrong trigger box (firing the wrong cylinders at the wrong time ). The top switch box is for 1,3 & 5 coils.

Something I didn't notice beforehand and I am glad I did now is that the 2 sets of wires coming off the stator to the trigger boxes have a colored conduit that matches which set goes to which box. In this instance the yellow conduit over the wiring goes to the top trigger box


the black conduit goes to the bottom

I didn't realize this until after I had wired the bottom box wrong and caught it in my before photos so pay close attention to everything.
Once your bottom box is wired up

install your spacers

2 bolts

bolt the top box on

and start wiring it up.
If you notice in the above photo I left a small jumper wire in place , that helped determine which box was used on the top . Any time you can use this method when reassembling  anything like wires , fuel lines (more on that later) or even vacuum lines it will help tremendously in reassembly.
99% of wiring is done in the engine now

Maybe 10 wires left and the ECM, Battery wires , Some fuel lines and the 2 control cables !!!
Before I bolt on the bottom covers I am going to clean and polish the middle section to remove those danged water deposits.

[jprism]

Would be the toughest part for me thank God for cell phone cameras


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bigwrench]

Starter bolts on easy enough
Install the bottom cap

Insert the starter bottom with the rubber isolator in place into the cup

Upper isolator in place also

install the top bracket

Tighten all 4 bolts
Good stopping point for tonight. Gonna start on it early in the morning before it gets too hot , getting real close to a cranking motor now !!!

[Princeton_Man]

Might see smoke tomorrow??

[Bigwrench]

Might see smoke tomorrow??

Yeah , hopefully !!! Lol. If I get it done early enough I'll run it to Holston for a short run to see how it performs.  Might have to meet a guy at BPS tomorrow to deliver some stuff he bought but the whole day is set aside for this and everyone's at the lake so only thing gonna slow me down is the 91 degree day lol. I'm thinking a 8 o'clock start time should cover it before it gets too hot !
I'll slap a small charger on the starting battery in the morning and let it top off while I'm working. This entire boat needs a complete detail top to bottom but right now I just wanna get it running.  If it all works out alright I'll get it all polished up and detailed out , start looking for a new prop and get some more gadgets installed on it !!

[jprism]

Know that we are all pulling for you and really enjoyed your build. Thanks for allowing us to follow along


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Oldfart9999]

Rick, I think you are enjoying this as much as we are, lot of work, lot of fine detail, my hats off to you!
Rodney

[Bigwrench]

Rick, I think you are enjoying this as much as we are, lot of work, lot of fine detail, my hats off to you!
Rodney

To be honest my brain is fried and I'm having to walk away from it , the wiring is a major PITA , worked on it an hour this  morning and it got way hot quick , my phone was shutting off due to high temps. So I cleaned out the garage and backed it halfway in, pulled out the fans and pulled he door down to the boat.

Much easier to work on and cooler in there but I'm stuck on 2 wires and a 3 wire sensor that I know where he wires coming off it plug up but I can't figure out where the sensor bolts on the motor . Just scrambled my brain trying to figure it out and had to walk away for awhile.
Been at it about 3 hours in the garage and no closer to firing it than I was yesterday !! Gonna eat some lunch and study the manual some , everything is tied down with wire ties and looks really good but I'm not going further until I figure out this sensor location. It is called a rotational sensor in the wiring diagram , 3 wires go to it and it has one bolt holding it down to its location. I'm thinking it's like a crankshaft sensor ...... Which makes me think it goes under the flywheel !!! (Grrrrr)
Map sensor hose was messing me up too but got that figured out by reading through manual slowly.
I tried searching the Adobe version of the manual for rotational and it shows up in every wiring diagram but nowhere else in the manual, can't find the removal and install anywhere in the manual. The wires are about 8" long and there's only so many places it can go since I know where it plugs in at.
#10 in the blow up

[Lipripper]

Keep at it Rick you will get it 

[Bigwrench]

Found it !

Moving on lol.