FT-817 only putting out a watt or two even on the 5W setting, is that normal?

Before you open anything up, put a meter on the supply while you're actually keying down. The 817 is relly picky about voltage. It's rated for 5 watts at 13.8 volts and the output falls off fast as voltage sags under load. Plenty of wall supplies that say 13.8 on the label will sag to 10 or 11 volts the moment the radio starts drawing real current, and the internal battery pack is even worse once the cells get tired. Full bars on the display don't mean much either, these show full bars til things are nearly dead. So measure under load, not just at idle. If you're seeing less than about 13 volts while transmitting, that's prolly your whole problem right there and the radio is fine. If the voltage is solid and you're still stuck around 2 watts, there's a hidden alignment menu in these radios where the output power is calibrated per band. Getting into it involves holding a couple of keys while powering on, and the exact sequence is written up in enough places that you'll find it in one search. Once you're in there you can adjust the output on each band separately. Mine sat in a closet for a few years before I got it and the power had drifted way down on every band. Ten minutes in the alignment menu brought it right back to spec.

One more thing, don't fully trust the wattmeter at these levels. alot of meters read low below 5 watts, so if you've got a buddy with a known good one it's worth a cross check before you conclude anything.

Only after the voltage check and a trip thru the alignment menu would I start suspecting the finals themselves, and honestly that's pretty rare on these unless somebody cooked it with a bad antenna switch. Nine times out of ten it's just supply voltage or drifted calibration.

OP here is one thing to check first: what mode did you key in? I've been bench-testing radios for years, mostly marine and land mobile stuff at the shop, and these little rigs put out way less in AM, something like a quarter of rated power on carrier. If you keyed up in AM and read 2 watts, that is actualy right on spec. Put it in CW, key down, and watch what the meter does before you tear anything apart. Also worth checking it on a band other than 20 and 40, the driver stages can go soft on one band and still act healthy everywhere else.

Following this one because I picked up an older handheld rig a while back and went through the same head scratching. Turned out the previous owner had left the old battery pack in it for years and one of the cells had leaked a bit onto the contact strip inside. Cleaned it up with some alcohol and a cotton swab and things perked right up. Since yours has a battery pack too it might be worth a peek at the contacts before buying anything new. Does yours run okay off the wall plug alone, or does it cut out altogether sometimes?

That AM carrier point is dead on, I chased the same ghost on mine a couple years back. Sat there keying down wondering why it looked half dead, then realized I'd left it in AM from poking around the bands earlier. Flipped it back to CW and the needle jumped right up where it belonged. Easy thing to forget when you've been hopping around the mode buttons, expecially on a used radio where the previous owner may have left it on whatever they last used.

Following this one as someone who just got thier first used radio a couple months back. Mine had similar worries and I never did work up the nerve to go poking in any service menus, kept picturing myself making it worse. Ended up just borrowing a meter from a guy at the local club meeting instead and that settled most of it. Is that alignment thing safe to poke around in, or can you mess somethig up in there by accident? That part always seemed scarier to me than the actual hardware.

Update: the supply sag was real. Put a meter on it while keying down and it was dropping way low under load, so I swapped to a bigger supply and power came up quite a bit. Still shy of where it should be though. Next step is checking the internal batteries and contacts like someone mentioned. Question for the bench guys: does the power slowly taper as these age, or is it more of a sudden drop when the finals go?