Mercury Pro Kicker 9.9 idling issues

First off, I’m posting for a buddy who doesn’t access the interweb much.

He has said motor, and his wife accidentally smacked it with her van. Everything looks fine, can’t even see where she hit it. No marks or anything. Motor ran well Saturday, and now….not so much. He starts it up, and it’ll run fine at higher RPMs, but if you want to get down below 3mph, forget it. How could her accident possibly made this happen, especially when the outside of the motor looks fine? I played with the idle screw, and that clearly has no bearing on it. Anyone got any ideas?

Did you take out a spare plugs to see if they were gummed up? Did it pinch or kink the gas line? Just some ideas.

I don’t think Jeremy played with the plugs much. We were thinking that if it were plugs or gas line, then it wouldn’t run at all. Please tell me if that line of thinking is wrong.

The other thing we did was while it was running at higher RPMs, we played with the idle screw and backed it out to idle it down. Motor ran fine until you got to a certain point, then boom. Dead. This ones really kinda got me stumped. What could have possibly happened internally when it was bumped with her van….

I bet the “bump” knocked some varnish loose and it got sucked into the low idle jet plugging the hole. I would remove the low idle jet and clean the small hole with some carb cleaner.

Right on! Pull the carb it`s fairly simple as I do mine about once a year.You will find some ethanol crystals floating around that plug things up.The last time mine acted up would be directly after speeding up to turn around. The increase fuel flow seemed to suck the junk into the jets and it eventually will not come back out of it.

I was having a similar issue with my kicker… minus the wife bumping it with her car. Mine would run fine at higher rpms but would not idle. Had the lund dealer clean the carb etc. and it still was not ideling like I would exptect. Seemed to still be having issues getting gas.

Long story short I tried pumping the bulb for the gas line. I know it sounds stupid but it worked and runs great just as long as I pump that bulb a couple times before using my kicker. Give it a shot.

Good luck!

I had the same issue with my kicker I had to pump my ball while I was trolling with it. I had my dealer install a gas valve on my boat for both engines. This valve will shut off the gas to my main motor and redirect the gas to the kicker. This is a ball valve type feature. It does work. I just forget to turn it back sometimes to the main motor I think I ran out of gas when this happens.
Give this a try. It should correct your problems.

Sea foam did wunders for mine

Thanks guys, I do appreciate it all. I relayed the info on to him, and given more time, I’m confident that I could get in there and take a look at the carb and needle(s). But….not my boat and I only have so much time.

I think he’s decided to have it looked at this weekend and see if a mechanic can get it working. I will check back and let you know the verdict.

My Merc kicker loves Seafoam. I have also replaced my bulb. The combination of the two worked for me. I am pretty sure I had a plugged low speed jet. Seafoam really does work as advertised! No doubt about it! If all you have is high speed, dump in the Seafoam and run it at WOT for a bit before going home. I let mine sit in the garage and let the SF do it’s thing. Next time out, I was problem free. All I can say is that it worked for me with the same issues.

Thanks for the help guys. You were right….it was a carb issue; apparently some gunk was knocked loose and had the thing plugged up, just like you said. $130 later and it seems to be running fine. Glad he got it taken care of….so I no longer have to mess with it.