Idle issues

[Merc 2.5]

I got a feller that called me looking for some advice and I wanted see what some yall thought bout this. He has a ole 2.4 BP with lots port work ,lots chest work, and block was opened up and now has behind liner porting like the 2.5, it's on a bass boat v pad ,which isn't real heavy but prob to heavy for the port work , has 24 chopper at 6200rpm ish. He can start it and idle in neutral fine , let it build heat , kill it ,put in gear and when he goes to start it , said won't start no matter what and cranks over like battery is dead. When he does get it goin ,has plenty power out the hole. Runnin on all 6 ,compression is 135ish. I thought maybe lower unit but it does fine when it does take off , his idle jets to fat and he has run of the mill wh200 carbs, we wanna swap carbs to 46s or 20s , 20s if we can find him some and raise idle jets to 56,60 instead 42s he has , he just can't get it to start in gear cause he idles around 1100 like most of us that start n gear. What could it be? Electronics r good

[Baker343]

Why does he have to start it in gear. If it doesn't like to be started in gear, will it then start in neutral?
Maybe electrical, starter, starter solenoid, battery, elect connections? You stated once it's started it runs normal.

[tlwjkw]

whats tha wh number of tha "run of tha mill" carbs?.. although they shouldn't act like that anyway...
has tha battery/starter (load tested) and cables been checked, cleaned?

[pcrussell50]

whats tha wh number of tha "run of tha mill" carbs?.. although they shouldn't act like that anyway...
has tha battery/starter (load tested) and cables been checked, cleaned?

Now you have me curious… I know about load testing batteries. But how do you test a starter?

-Peter

[tlwjkw]

starter/alternator rebuild shops jus clamp it up on their machine, throw a load on it (kinda like a battery load test).... they basically jus test amperage pull when its energized............

only had it done a coupla times a very, very long time ago.. always had plenty of spares shortly after we started with this sickness................