Only Start on emergency

Spooln

New Member
Jul 11, 2016
3
Saratoga NY
Boat Info
280 SUNDANCER
Engines
4.3MPI Alpha
I have a 07 280 Sundancer with twin 4.3 the port motor only starts up when I use emergency start. Is this a common issue on this? Is it a connection issue?
 
Welcome to CSR!

What condition are the batteries? Age, properly charged, load tested. More than likely the port battery is weak or dead. Have you tried swapping batteries to see if the port starts any better on the other battery.
 
Had that problem on a 340 (8.1) once. There was a fuse (or a reset) under the top of the engine cover.

Mark
 
Gotta to with the batteries on this one. E-start simply bridges the batteries together to give you greater amperage... I can't really see a reason other than weak batteries that would cause e-start to work but normal start not to. Maybe something with the starter but that would be an oddity in my opinion. My money is on the batteries.
 
We were moored for a night a couple of weeks ago. I ran the gennie for a couple of hours here and there, mostly to run the air for a while and charge the battery the stereo uses. Woke up and checked the batteries. House side wasn't looking pretty. We had to emergency start to get Starboard going.

I'm betting, like others here, your port battery is toast. 4 years seems to be the life cycle. We were in our 5th with the Starboard side. Replaced them all.

Mark
 
Batteries, I had the same problem 2 seasons ago. Replaced the batteries & all was fine.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
 
The motor does die after releasing e-start button. Batteries are @2yrs old. How can I find the fusible link? Thanks for all the info
 
Not to get you on a wild goose chase here, but I once had a bad battery switch cause this problem. Batteries were fine, but the selector switch went bad
 
Your not going to be able to get to that starter without a lot of parts coming out first..... Try the battery first
 
Your not going to be able to get to that starter without a lot of parts coming out first..... Try the battery first


Batteries are only two years old. Has to be something else. I don't even know what a fusable link is, but something is either constantly draining the battery or preventing the battery from getting a charge.
 
If is like the one on a 8.1 - I think it was just a button to push in to reseat it. The 8.1's have a plastic cover over the top of the engine, take 3 screws out - there it is.

Lot less expensive to try this rather than replacing batteries.

Mark
 
My suggestion was to go for the low hanging fruit first. Getting to the fusible links would be very labor intensive
 
The motor does die after releasing e-start button. Batteries are @2yrs old. How can I find the fusible link? Thanks for all the info
Sorry, I didn't realize that it died after releasing. Mine ran once I used the emergency switch to start it.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
 
Ok I'm going to do some tests 1st see if alternator is charging and see if battery is ok or hopefully its just a bad connection somewhere on ground etc

Another thing is before my port side motor wont start w/o the emergency battery switch being on is that that normal thought it would be on main battery switch? How are the batteries wired when you have 3 of them on the Sea Ray's. If you guys haven't notice I'm new to Sea Ray's or cruisers.
 
Last edited:
If it does die when the emergency start switch is released, then the problem is most likely the fusible link down by the starter.
Fwebster - hi I sounds like you know a lot about the emergency switch and it’s issues. Can you help? I stranded out about 20 mikes from home. I took advice and changed all 4 batteries and replaced the 90 amp switch but still have issue that the stdb engine will not continue to run once the jumper switch is released. Is there a emergency jumper solenoid? Could this be the issue? Slave solenoid? Can’t find a picture of where this might even be. Thx for any help. Text 419-283-4638 if you can. Thx!
 

Forum statistics

Threads
112,950
Messages
1,422,865
Members
60,932
Latest member
juliediane
Back
Top