Back in the winter I bought a 1989 Crestliner 19.5' with a Mariner 150 and 15 hp outboards. The little 15hp never would run worth a darn so I took it to a marine mechanic and in a week or so he told me that he had put a compression tester on and the compression was low in one of the cylinders, so it would need a rebuild. The price for him to do that was around $2000! I looked around and found some new 9.9' that I could get for just a little more, but with all of the coin I had dropped on all of the electronics and electric TM, I really did want to find a cheaper way out. I looked on Ebay and found a listing for a powerhead for my exact same motor that had been compression tested at 120/120 psi. After checking all of the part numbers and looking at all of the pictures and emailing the place that was selling it in Mississippi, and getting pretty comfortable with the fact that it was a perfect match for my powerhead, I went ahead and paid the $350 which included the shipping, and waited for it to arrive. They were super fast with the shipping and it was here in Kalispell, MT in just 3 days! It looked like an exact match for my powerhead and so I started dismantling the old one. I had never done anything like this before, but found every YouTube video I could, and checked and double checked part numbers before ordering. I had to replace the crankshaft seals on either end of the crankcase and put that back together, and had a few other parts that had to be replaced. I also completely rebuilt the water pump and carburetor. To be honest I wasn't very sure it would ever run, but I kept at it. Within a couple of weeks of waiting for parts and working on it when I could in the evenings, I was ready to try to start her up. It has an electric start and a remote control just like the big motor. I put it in the stock tank full of water and started pulling. I had cleaned out the fuel tank and replaced the fuel line and added an inline filter, and after having rebuilt the carb, I knew it would take a while to get fuel into the cylinders to fire. I never could get it going that evening. The next evening I started again. I primed the bulb good and even stepped on it a little to make sure there was enough pressure to get fuel into the thing, and started pulling, I was just about to grab a can of ether, and see what would happen, when it fired! It started on the next pull and ran like a champ! I studied how to set the idles and time it and now that thing starts first or second pull every time and idles so nice you can hardly tell it's running! I was ready to trash the thing, and man that would have been a big mistake. It really wasn't that hard and with all of the information out there I just see no reason not to give it a go if anyone has this kind of problem arise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWE2QRAW6-g
