I'm not sure it's what fixed my motor because I replaced thermostats, water pumps, poppit valves at the same time but this is what I did.
I pulled the lower units off and plugged the pickup tube. Then I pulled the thermostats. Filled the motors with vinegar (just regular 5% from the store but I now realize that you can get 20 or 30% off amazon). Let it sit for 10 minutes then pull the plug from pickup tube and let it drain. The stuff that drained I caught in a bucket and reused a few more times before finally flushing with fresh vinegar the last time and then flushing with fresh water for a long time.
A lot of stuff came out but who knows if it made a big difference. In the past with the 60 hp on my whaler I flushed it in a small garbage can with water and vinegar and that also cleaned a LOT of stuff out. I tried this with the 225 2 strokes on the big boat but I don't know that it was that effective because the garbage can is just too large and I didn't want to buy 40 bottles of vinegar. One thing I think could work well is a bucket with an aquarium pump, water heater and vinegar. If you could rig it so that the pump was constantly flushing hot vinegar through the block and then recapturing the vinegar to keep recirculating it I think that would really clean out the innards.
I now flush with saltaway after use, not sure how effective that is either. Just doing everything I can to keep these old motors running because a repower is too much $$!!
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