1998 225 Merc Motor HELP!!
We took our boat out a few weeks ago for the first time this year after replacing the lower unit and noticed the motor wasn't running right after about 10 minutes of idling we decided to just drop the trolling motor and fish.. trolling motor wasn't running right (it's brand new) and about 5 minutes later the battery blew up!! We called it a day and went to plane the boat off to get back to the dock and the motor had lost alot of its power. We loaded the boat back up and took it to a mechanic...
1st mechanic said compression was 125 on all cylinders but that gas was leaking from both sides of the motor at an idle. He said it seemed to him like the bolts had backed out causing the issue. He didn't have time to work on it so we took it to another mechanic....
2nd mechanic said compression was different on all cylinders ranging between 105-120. He also said we needed to rebuild/bore the engine and that 2 spark plugs weren't firing and quoted us about 5k for the work..
I said all of this to ask if anyone else has had the issue and if so what did you do to fix it? We've been told so many different things and a boat motor is one thing we don't know alot about. When we had a new power head put on (about 6 yrs ago) should the bolts have had lock-tite on them to keep them from backing out?? We need any advice we can get!