tattle tale woes

hi everyone. i have a new to me 20 hp merc 2 stroke, got it going great , idled, revved up, lots of water from tattle tale pee hole. shifted her into gear and all was well.
then, after an hour, went back to run it again and it stumbled, stuttered, no pee hole water. i couldn't believe it.
i blew air up the small pee hole, took the hose off the pee hole bottom connetor and blew up it and bubbles came up from the vents under water in the barrel! does this mean the tube underwater came off it's connector?
what to do now? i know the hose isn't blocked, but i'm blowing bubbles at the other end and i am thinking something came apart.
by the way, on the ohter side of the engine is a screw missing in what i presume is the water jacket. someone on a help site said he pushed water through this opening to clear things up, but if i can blow all of the way down to the vents in the water, seems pretty unobstructed to me.
thanks for any help.

First off, welcome to Tinboats.net!

I'm not an outboard mechanic but will give it a stab. If you are pretty sure the upper passages are clear, you may have an impeller issue. Did you replace the impeller? Was the motor sitting up for a while? I have seen old impellers work initially and then shred after a little use. They dry rot pretty quickly. This happened to me on an older motor. A piece of the old impeller broke off and got stuck up in the upper connection to the water pickup tube. I had to remove the foot to replace the impeller and also remove the water tube. It drove me crazy for a while until I found that piece of rubber. It had actually worked it's way up close to the block. If I remember correctly, I removed the thermostat and sprayed water down the passage to clear the obstruction.

Hopefully this helps some. Let us know what you find. -Eric

thanks eric, i have been thinking that i should do up the impeller. there was a tiny bit of water in the gear case so maybe i should put in some new seals as well. do u know where is the best access for merc servcie manuals? that would be helpful, thx.
the thing about the cooler system is that there isn't a blockage as i can blow right from the tattle tale to the underwater vents. that is what makes me think htere was an 'unfortunate event' that caused the tube to come disconnected down there somewhere. oh well, it should be a good project to work this out, never done any of that work before so should be fun.

The best service manuals are made by the manufacturer of the engine. Sometime you can find them on ebay for a decent price. I would say the Clymer manuals are next best. Seloc manuals are bottom on my list. You can pay and access the Seloc manuals online through there website. I have used that service and I'm not a huge fan.

Typically, you will have 6-8 bolts holding the foot on. You may have to take the water intake screens off the foot to get to the shift shaft to separate. Once you get the foot off, you can get to the impeller.

Try to go to a mercury parts site such as mercury parts express and search for your engine. You will see exploded diagrams of your engine. That will give you a good idea of what you are looking at removing and reassembling.

Good Luck with it- Eric

Here's my experience from two past old outboards with the pee hole troubles.

First, the pee hole is just an indicator that water is pumping from the lower unit. It could be blocked and still cool motor. I know it's too late, but if the top of the outboard was hot to the touch, then water wasn't cooling the motor but usually when this happens, the motor should've shut down.

I've had experience where I could push compressed air, and garden hose pressure up the tube into the upper unit with the lower unit removed but yet water still wouldn't pump from the lower unit. One motor I was able to clear it with a coat hanger (the end being shoved up with a curl put into it so as not to cut anything).

The other motor I believe had a bad or broken seal at the end of the tube that went into the power head. This motor had other issues so traded it in for a "newer" motor at a dealer.

One thing I would try is to remove the lower unit, suspend it in some water to cover the water intake holes, attach an electric or battery drill to the drive shaft making sure you have the correct direction of normal rotation and see if it is pumping water before buying new parts. Be careful not to damage the splines at the top of the driveshaft.

Good luck!