Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was a service manager at a marina for many years, and my father was a Johnson-Evinrude dealer for 25 years. I bought this motor with a 7.5ft inflatable on Amazon. Its to be used as a tender to my Searay 340. I liked the price and the weight, but was unsure of the quality. Here is what I found. The packing(styrofoam) break apart into small balls and gets everywhere. I found some inside the carb throat itself, past the air filter. The airfilter has one screw, remove and check before starting. The rear vent cover was not under the two engine cover lips, I removed the halves and re installed. Careful as no nuts are captive and are very small, they will fall out. The zerk fitting for grease was dry, I lubed it with marine grease. Small grease guns are less than 10 dollars. Once you check these things out mix your oil/gas 1 gallon at a time. Its a 2 cycle, so do not run it full blast for a few hours. They take time to seat the piston to the cylinder walls, and you will be rewarded with more power later. I ran it for 2 hours on and off for a day. I noticed it was getting hot, and the plastic black muffler/water exit was not pushing alot of water. On outboards its called a telltale, and tell you water is pumping and providing cooling. The off position marked is actually choke on, run in the ON position. Once home, i removed the black plastic water exit piece. The rubber gasket shaped like a rectangle has 4 holes, 2 where blocked by the gasket. I used a razor blade to open the holes for the water to flow. I saw that the bottom of the black plastic piece has a hole in the bottom, but not drilled all the was thru? I drilled this out to allow water to exit properly. I wiped the entire motor down with silicone spray to keep corrosion at bay. While I was flushing this motor in a bucket at home, I noticed the water pump seems to only engage while in forward with prop spinning. It means its not cooling at idle, be careful of this. Do not idle for long periods of time. I knew this outboard at this price would not be perfect, but with some attention should provide good service. I notice the lower unit (area near prop) has a fill line indicated, and to flat spots where gear case lube should hook to a fitting. Its just not there. In the future, I may drill and tap these and install fittings to replace gear lube. I will update as I tweak this fun little motor.