Hello everyone, I'm new here, great place you have here. Thanks for having me.

I have always been a hobbiest and I found myself wanting to get on the water and bought myself a nice small fiberglass boat. With it came a 1987 mercury 70hp. I have had the boat out two weekends now and it worked great, but last weekend I ran into problems. Starting the motor wasnt that much of a hassle, Figuring I havent started it in a week I was happy that it fired on my second try. After taking the boat out for a bit I decided to shut off the boat to relax, After 10 minutes I had troubles starting the boat, and after I got it starting it wasn't idling that great and when I added throttle it kept on stalling. After about 10-15 tries and SLOWWWWLY adding throttle I finally got the boat to move, and worked great. Next time I shut off the boat I had the exact same problem. Then I decided to go tubing, we werent even tubing for 5 minutes and I felt a great loss in power, approximently half power. I shut off the boat and had continuous problems starting and getting throttle to the engine, I was able to creep the boat back to the marina but it never got better.

I would like to get some help from people with similar problems before I went running to a shop to throw some money away. I have some experience working with automobile and motorcycle engines so I'm not totally new to engines, I know my way around the garage but if you can help try not to talk to much over my head!

Thanks for reading and thanks for any help, much appreciated! Thanks!