Trojan Boat Forum

Okay, first off I want to say that everyone's advice so far has been AWESOME and I incredibly appreciate the help. My girlfriend has been dutifully promoted to first mate (she gave me a 'you're crazy' look when I informed her,) and I did just manage to get the starter motor to crank (completely by accident mind you.)

After cleaning every electrical contact I could get my hands on all day long, she still wouldn't crank so, as one last test for the day I wanted to see if 12v was getting to the starter motor side of the solenoid. I had first mate push the switch to 'START' and since I seem to have formed a nice path for current with my multimeter from the solenoid casing to the starter terminal, she cranked! (I got a nice little firework show and luckily, my fluke didn't get blown out of service.)

So unless anyone has anything else they think it could be, I'm 90% certain that means that the solenoid has gone bad and that the starter motor is fine (hopefully.) I'm ordering a new solenoid now and will have to see how she does after I get back from being out of town for the weekend. Until then I guess i'm relying on my engine room heater and keeping my fingers crossed that power doesn't cut out on the boat while i'm gone :/

Flyboy wrote:You do not need to turn it in the correct direction, you are just trying to determine if the engine is seized up or not. If it will turn in either direction check for a bad starter.

Thanks! Was afraid that turning it the other direction might have implications but that makes sense. Since the V-drive is in neutral its just moving pistons inside the casing.

jbrem003 wrote:My girlfriend has been dutifully promoted to first mate (she gave me a 'you're crazy' look when I informed her,)

My wife is the admiral and I am the lowly captain on our boat. In other words, she makes the big decisions and I just drive the boat. Don't tell her, but I really like getting behind the controls...

Be extra careful about electrical gremlins..... take diagnosis slow, and be very methodical about whats going on and where the damage may go.

A few years back we had an issue where the port engine sort of quit while under way (current spike tripped the 50A breaker). BUT, the engine kept running! Why? The popped breaker should have killed it. BUT, somehow the engine kept running by pulling power (V and Amps) from the stbd engine through the (Trojan factory installed) engine synchronizer! It pulled 30-50 amps through 18-24 gauge wire to power the port engine until my wife went below and saw the smoke in the cabin as the wires and synch burned up....

Don't know how or why the stars aligned, but the wife probably headed below within a minute of the problem happening - or I could have had an open fire on the water. The electronics that were smoking / burning up were enclosed in a Teak box, mounted on the 'glass ceiling above the lower controls.

The engine ran just fine as it still had 12V, but all polarities were in reverse - which didn't help other components like voltage regulator and ignition module! There were NO fuses in the engine synch lines.

As part of clipping all wires and installing new engine synchs, I now have an inline 2A fuse in each engine synch sense wire...

If you are facing a questionable or not fully understood electrical system, approach it with skepticism... You are the beneficiary of whatever untold years of changes made by prior owners with unknown unknown electrical educations... It could be an A#1 Rockstar system, or a Trailer Park Boys 'whatever' system...

OKAY - BIG PROGRESS TODAY

So I installed the new solenoid, cleaned pretty much EVERY electrical contact I could find and added dielectric grease to protect my handiwork, and replaced all the spark plugs on the engine.

(before I installed the new plugs I happily ran the engine to see if any hydrolocking had occurred.

Turned to START and engine fired RIGHT UP! And then it did what I remember it doing very shortly after we had it out on first half of day 1 of our maiden cruise.

Engine slowly lost power and died.

Tried to make myself feel better by running starboard, but all I got was a bunch of clicking from that engine as well so it seems demons may come in pairs...

Retiring for the night cause my patience is pretty much shot and hoping this warm weather holds out for a few more days.

When it lost power, did it still seem to run smoothly and die or did it run rough and die. After it died did it still turn over using when you turned the key.

Flyboy wrote:When it lost power, did it still seem to run smoothly and die or did it run rough and die. After it died did it still turn over using when you turned the key.

It kindof slowly ran down and died. When trying to start again it wouldn't turn over anymore.

Okay, I have gone back and read all of your posts. With the engine sometimes starting and then just stopping a few minutes later and then not turning over, I would of said the sol was bad, but you replaced that. You have had all the connections off, cleaned and back on, so in my mind the only thing left that could cause this is your ignition switch. I would swap the ignition switches and see what happens. I guess you could have a neutral switch that is going bad, you could bypass that and see what happens. I am leaning more towards the ignition switch.
I had an ignition switch go bad once, went on a trip, shut down at the dock, came back after lunch and would not turn over, switch just failed when I turned the engine off.

ignition switch or ignition coil?

To clarify, my console doesn't have a key, it's a 3-position switch. The only thing that prevents my boat from starting are the switches at my breaker panel and turning the switches on the console to the 'OFF' position

-J

Ignition switch or panel switches. The col would not keep it from turning over.

Flyboy wrote:Ignition switch or panel switches. The col would not keep it from turning over.

On many F boats the console switch will keep it from turning over , it kills the power to the ignition switches . My also has the 3 way toggle switches on the lower helm .

jbrem003 wrote:To clarify, my console doesn't have a key, it's a 3-position switch. The only thing that prevents my boat from starting are the switches at my breaker panel and turning the switches on the console to the 'OFF' position

-J

Don't forget the neutral safety switch -- it was causing you a problem earlier. The vibration of a running engine could cause it to jiggle out of position slightly and keep the starter from engaging.

On our boat, I sometimes have to go to both helms and wiggle both shifters to get the engines to start. When I rebuild or replace the shifters and throttles, that should go away.

And that is a bit of a safety issue if we ever need to move the boat in a hurry. I have developed the habit of centering the shifters whenever putting the trans into neutral, which mostly makes this go away.