Strange Clicking Noise

[pnorton]

Hey everybody.
So I finally got the '85 Jcraft into the water this weekend with a 2003 mercury 150 XR6 on it. At the dealership they had said everything checked out with the motor. Saturday night I drove it around and it was fine and docked it for the night at the cottage. Sunday morning I went to go fill up on gas, got to the marina fine but on my way back the motor just died... it began to make this "clicking" noise and did not sound right at all. I turned to motor off and turned it back on again and it seemed to be fine.. but a little bit down again it died. I managed to get it back to the dock going about half throttle but it really did not sound right. When I tilted the motor up when it was docked I noticed water coming out of the rigging hoses area..a felt the water and it was warm. I left it there for a while and went back to it later that day. Turned the motor on and it idled fine. Did not take it out in fear something might happen.

Does anybody know what this might mean?

Patrick

[silkeysak]

Compression, spark, and fuel flow. These are the the basics of your outboard. Start with these until you narrow down to what is wrong. If you rule them out you have an internal engine problem. From what you have said, it sounds like a fuel issue.

[77viper]

Run it at the dock with the cowl off to isolate where the noise is coming from, and you can check for water leaks. Does it do it just under load or all the time?

[pnorton]

not all the time... it was still making the noise when I had made it back to the dock.. it sounds like the engine is running really heavily (for lack of a great description) its not a very smooth idle/running more of a clunky running.

[p man]

Head gasket maybe?