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From: Mike Maurice (no email)
Date: Mon Oct 03 2005 - 12:27:22 EDT
You may recall that I promised something about starters that won't disengage.
The last trip was a real lulu for small but almost near disastrous
problems. The starter would start the engine but the bendix would not
disengage. The fix was to turn off the big perko wall switch in the
engine room, the starter would disengage, then turn the perko switch
back on. The fuel solenoid was a 2 stage affair, in that a big coil
was used to draw the arm back, then once the arm was all the way back
it the big coil would cut out and a smaller one would keep the arm in
place. The big coil was not disengaging and we have burned up at
least 2 or 3 of these $300 devices. It became obvious that replacing
the units was going to just result in another burn out, so we tied
the arm back and cut the wiring.
There are a number of issues here, but one is that the number one
problem in boats is the electrical systems and that simple systems
are reliable and anything else is a potential for trouble.
For my money I would have a morse cable to turn the fuel on and off,
a simple key on/off to enable power to the engine harness. A push
button to enable the starter and an alarm system to warn of overheat,
low oil pressure, etc.
The wiring to the fuel solenoid was not fused, so the wires burned up
and made a lot of smoke. Since all this was up against the engine
block, it was not able to start any fire of consequences. We did not
use extinguishers on it. However, all of this could have resulted in
the loss of the boat, if there had been any real fuel to feed the fire.
This boat is the same one that had the bad habit of starting up
running backwards, if idled at low speed and shut down and the fuel
was not COMPLETELY turned off. I mentioned this problem some months
ago in another post.
This boat spent the summer in BC and Alaska. I have noticed problems
with boats that have had a lot of time put on them like this and then
handed over to be taken down the coast without major maintenance
being done. Often times it is difficult to get that maintenance done,
which partially explains it not being done.
Mike
Capt. Mike Maurice
Tualatin(Portland), Oregon
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