115 hp Mercury stalls while driving

by Buddy Parham
(Atlanta Ga.)

I have an 1988 115 HP mercury motor that runs fine when I get it cranked up, which takes a few times to crank. When I am traving across the water at about 15 mph for about 5 minutes, I start to loose power on the motor then it it will stall out. I take the throttle and pump it up and down but that doesn't work. If I catch it in time, I can pull the throttle back to neutral and it will stay running. But when I put back into gear, it will start to stall again.
This last past weekend, the motor stalled and I cranked back up, then it stalled again and I tried to crank it back up and I couldn't get it to crank. After waiting 10 minutes, I finally got it to crank. I put it in gear and could only run it at about 3 miles per hour. When I tried to give it more gas, it wanted to stall again so I back the throttle back down and creep across the lake to get back to the dock. This has been going on for a while where I had the carbs cleaned and the throttle adjusted and this hasn't solved the problem. I am thinking it is a fuel issue since it will run fine and then all of a sudden it will stall out. Is the motor getting to hot where it stalls the motor but why would it crank back up. Any help would be great.