Possible starter damage?

H

Half Fast

Member
Apr 17, 2010
135
Massapequa, Long Island
Boat Info
1999 27' Sundancer
Engines
6.2 MPI (2005)
OK - here's what happened. My batteries were 3 years old and I was trying to stretch the rest of this season out of them. No real problems were noted prior to this incident other than they weren't holding a charge as long, especially one of them ..

So Labor day weekend the marina I usually trek to was full, so we decided to anchor in a nearby cove. As soon as I went to drop the anchor with the windlass my engine shut off. Attempts to start the engine resulted in just a click. Checked the voltage and it was way down, 10 volts tops. Drifted into a nearby houseboat and we tried hooking up a spare battery he had, still wouldn't start. BoatUS tow guy came, tried jumping it off his running engine, it turned over once for about a second, didn't fire. After that it wouldn't turn over again.

I replaced both batteries this weekend .. still won't turn over. I hit the reset breaker on the engine, tried to start it, it turned over again for about a second, didn't fire. Now again since then I just get a single "click" from the engine.

So - what do you guys think happened? Did the amp draw from engaging the windlass finally "blow" one or both of my old batteries? Could trying to start the engine with the severely reduced voltage from the damaged batteries have fried the starter? Is it all a coincidence and my engine decided to take a crap at the exact same time I engaged the windlass motor?

I'm not sure where to go from here. New batteries, clean terminals, and even gave them a full days charge above and beyond how they came. I don't think its the slave solenoid because I can definitely hear a click whenever I try to start it and also like I said it had turned over (albeit for a very short interval) twice. Is it the solenoid that's on the starter? The starter itself? Any way to test? It doesn't look like getting the starter off is going to be very easy.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Check voltage at the starter, clean starter terminals, then start looking at the solenoid on the starter (if you do indeed hear the upper solenoid clicking).
 
i suggest you pull the plugs and be sure you do not have water in the cylinders....the engine may be hydrolocked and the weak battery situation is not really your issue....if you try to turn over a hydrolocked engine you could bend the piston push rods....the starter is VERY strong and water does not compress very well....

good luck...hope you just have a battery or solenoid issue....

cliff
 
Just an idea.... I like to KISS my problems (keep it simple stupid) Could the ignition key wiring be bad, barely connected? My Starb engine has to be put to start position about 4 times before it actually cranks.
 
Battery wires could be junk, but look fine
Check your ground connections, back of engine.
try spinning it over with a remote stater button or a screw driver to the starter terminals.
Hold the key in the start position for several seconds, then feel around to see what's getting hot.
 
Found that the positive connections on the starter solenoid where a little loose, tightened them up thinking I had it solved but still no go. Watched the starter as someone else turned the key, listened to the solenoid click but the armature wouldn't engage, figured it was shot. Took the starter off, brought it home, threw it on the bench, and it ran just fine!

Back to the boat, looked at the wiring more closely. The 90 amp fuse block that sits on the positive solenoid post along with the large cable form the battery looked like it was prop from backdraft. Just a screw post surrounded charred, melted blob of plastic. When I was looking at everything else I wasn't paying too much attention and just thought it was discolored and greasy.

Replaced it, put everything back together, and everything is good at the moment.

Some concerns/thoughts I have going forward:

That charred, melted blob of a 90 amp fuseblock was still passing current. The wires attached to it feed the helm and all sorts of other stuff on the boat and they were still working. Whats the point.

Whileit was passing current, there were some signs something was wrong, but I chose not to focus on it. I noticed when I would turn the key and watch my volt gauge that it would immediately drop to below 10 volts for the period of time that the fuel pump kicked on, then it would shoot up to 12 amps. I didn't think it had ever done that in the past but I dismissed it - I should have investigated the reason for that sooner and maybe saved myself a lot of work removing the starter completely. With the replaced 90 amp fuse it no longer exhibits that behavior.

And of course, I still don't know for sure what caused the meltdown. Based on what happened prior to losing power and not being able to restart the boat - my guess is that the degraded voltage from the old battery combined with an already loose connection was causing that fuse to heat up often and it was just getting worse and worse and the combination of it and the battery and kicking on the windlass which I rarely do pushed everything over the edge. I know there is some Ohms law at work here - I am not an electrician or an EE but there is surely some when-voltage-drops-amps-rise thing going on with some added resistance surely from the 90 amp fuse blob. But of course it could be something else, it could have been a massive short somewhere which is just waiting to rear its head again. I'm happy I have it fixed but I wish I had a better handle on exactly what went wrong.

Thanks again for everyone's ideas.
 
Last edited:
Half Fast said:
Found that the positive connections on the starter solenoid where a little loose, tightened them up thinking I had it solved but still no go. Watched the starter as someone else turned the key, listened to the solenoid click but the armature wouldn't engage, figured it was shot. Took the starter off, brought it home, threw it on the bench, and it ran just fine!

Back to the boat, looked at the wiring more closely. The 90 amp fuse block that sits on the positive solenoid post along with the large cable form the battery looked like it was prop from backdraft. Just a screw post surrounded charred, melted blob of plastic. When I was looking at everything else I wasn't paying too much attention and just thought it was discolored and greasy.

Replaced it, put everything back together, and everything is good at the moment.

Some concerns/thoughts I have going forward:

That charred, melted blob of a 90 amp fuseblock was still passing current. The wires attached to it feed the helm and all sorts of other stuff on the boat and they were still working. Whats the point.

Whileit was passing current, there were some signs something was wrong, but I chose not to focus on it. I noticed when I would turn the key and watch my volt gauge that it would immediately drop to below 10 volts for the period of time that the fuel pump kicked on, then it would shoot up to 12 amps. I didn't think it had ever done that in the past but I dismissed it - I should have investigated the reason for that sooner and maybe saved myself a lot of work removing the starter completely. With the replaced 90 amp fuse it no longer exhibits that behavior.

And of course, I still don't know for sure what caused the meltdown. Based on what happened prior to losing power and not being able to restart the boat - my guess is that the degraded voltage from the old battery combined with an already loose connection was causing that fuse to heat up often and it was just getting worse and worse and the combination of it and the battery and kicking on the windlass which I rarely do pushed everything over the edge. I know there is some Ohms law at work here - I am not an electrician or an EE but there is surely some when-voltage-drops-amps-rise thing going on with some added resistance surely from the 90 amp fuse blob. But of course it could be something else, it could have been a massive short somewhere which is just waiting to rear its head again. I'm happy I have it fixed but I wish I had a better handle on exactly what went wrong.

Thanks again for everyone's ideas.
Click to expand...

If you think it's only a short then just lengthen it.
 
loose wiring equals high resistance combined with high current and low voltage translates to heat and melt downs

I like the short vs length comment.:grin:

think your last paragraph sums it up pretty well
 
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