1990 mercury 100 hp

by Jill
(Neligh, Nebraska, USA)

About 2 weeks ago the boat alarm would go off and on, sometimes staying on for a few minutes then increasing to the entire time the boat was in the “on” position. Now it stays on constantly and will not stay running. Sometimes it will start and run for a few seconds before stalling out. It can be difficult to start the engine it just keeps turning over. There’s no water flow from the tell tale, even though the day before it did. This last outing we got to our fishing spot (on the river so dealing with a lot of waves and current... the motor worked good other than trying to get it to start took a lot of turning over, when we got to our spot the fish finder would not work, and the live well would not fill, we decided to go in to figure it what was wrong. Then dead, would not start at all, just that alarm, finally got it started but would not go full throttle, then while trying to get back to the boat dock it started going faster without touching anything. While waiting to load the live well all of a sudden filled and the fish finder started working. Any Suggestions?