Starter Issues and solution

[weregel]

Again, not much traffic on this board so I will post my starter saga in hope it may help someone else out.

After installing a reman. lower on my 1983 Evinrude 60 hp I put it in the tank for adjustments and encountered a totally anemic starter turn over, erwump...........erwump........erwump!

Luckily this motor starts "on the first pull" and I was able to adjust and tank test the lower.

Charged the battery, no change, pulled the battery and took it to Napa and it tested perfect. Fool me I them assumed the 30 year old starter was dying and threw a new one at it. No Change?!?!

Then I did what I should have done in the first place, cleaned all of the contacts from battery to solenoid to starter to ground nice and shiny.
Again no change.

Then I finally did what I probably should have done, I changed all of the primary wire from battery to solenoid, solenoid to starter and battery to ground and guess what? Somewhere in that 30 year old wire something was bad.

With the new (very expensive marine grade wire) it spins and starts like a new motor!

If I was going to do it again I would order a new OE wire kit on line. It looked expensive but with the cost of the wire and terminals I bought to make up my own I came pretty close to the cost of a ready made original equipment replacement. Actually the wires either way cost more than a new in box starter!

Maybe this will help someone out.

[Roccus]

Sorry you slipped through the cracks... I check the board every day and some posts have been there for a year...

testing is always preferable to replacing.... had you done an amp load reading on the starter and a resistance test on the wires you would have had your answer quickly...

[weregel]

Originally Posted by Roccus

Sorry you slipped through the cracks... I check the board every day and some posts have been there for a year...

testing is always preferable to replacing.... had you done an amp load reading on the starter and a resistance test on the wires you would have had your answer quickly...

Thanks Roccus, glad to know someone looks at this board. I do have a fairly serviceable multimeter that I never bothered to learn how to use other than looking for power or testing continuity.

After the fact, I have been watching videos and working with the bad wire to attempt to learn to do just that, test instead of replace.

[Roccus]

Every wire has an OHm reading per foot as well as per gauge.... usualy when a wire goes "bad".. water has inpregnated the sheath, then each strand corodes isolating the individual strands forming individual small wires rather than one solid mass... thus greatly reducing it's amp carrying capacity.. voltage will remain constant or show very little loss, but the load carrying cap[acity wil be greatly reduced...each strand of marine (AGW)wire is tinned to resist corosion...also.. there are more strands per gauge wire makeing it more flexable and less prone to breakage... for marine applications, it's worth the extra coin...