Question about 25hp mercury 2-stroke

Hello,

This weekend I'll be picking up my first tin boat. It's a 14' tracker topper with a 25hp mercury 2-stroke. The engine runs great even though it's a little old. My question is, would I be able to convert it to an electric start? Right now it's a hand pull start which I would much rather prefer to be electric start. Has anybody had any experience in this?

Thanks

it can be converted, but it's not cheap to do it correctly. When I say 'correctly', that means installing the correct stator, all the wiring changes (harness), relay, switches, neutral switch, etc.

The "cheap" way is to install a starter, a button, and wire it directly to the button-which I have seen a lot of. DO NOT do it this way as the wires have to carry a large load, and without a relay, the wires will burn-and if there's any fuel vapor under the cowling when a wire burns, poof-there goes your motor and possibly your boat too (or worse...). Even with a relay, doing it this way, it still won't have a way to charge the battery when the engine is running; so you'll only get just a few starts out of it before the battery goes down. And that's why I tell all of my customers to either do it right or buy a motor with electric start; with the latter being preferred for cost reasons.

I looked into the same sourcing original parts for the 18-25hp mercury/mariner motors (I've got a 20hp Mariner from the same line) and I think the total cost was ~$400 from Boats.net

Needless to say I've still got the pull start. It starts on the first or second pull each time so it hasn't been an issue.

If it's in good shape, even if it's old, you can sell it for good money and then buy another used motor with e-start. That is what I would do.

If you want to go through the comparison between the manual and e-start variants you can plug your S/N in and find (last I searched a few months ago) all the factory spec parts you'll need from www.boats.net they were quite a bit cheaper than most of the other mercury/mariner suppliers I checked with a good comprehensive available inventory.