Hi Everyone,

I have a 400 Express Trojan with 2 Mercruiser 8.1 S engines. One starts just fine cold. The other one does the normal beep and I hear the fuel pump light up when I turn on the ignition, and I hear a good "Click" which leads me to believe that the solenoid is operating but the starter motor doesn't fire up. If I hold the start button for a little while a few times it will eventually turn over and the engines starts fine. If I run that engine for a little while, shut it down, and try to restart it, it will fire right up.

I checked and cleaned the leads to the start switch, the solenoid and the starter itself. All of them looked good even before I cleaned them. I konw the batteies are good becuase the other engine fires right up.

I'm guessing it's new starter motor time but it's strange that it work well after everything has warmed up.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Richard

sounds like rust/corrosion inside the starter or solinoid..

Don't forget to clean the battery terminals, perko switch terminals and ground strap to the engine.

You wouldn't by chance be loosing any coolant from the engines would you? If they are not closed cooled, You need to know for sure that you are not getting water into a cylinder as it sits overnight.

Clicking doesn't mean the solenoid is working. If the solenoid is bad it will click, jump it out across the large terminals. If it starts the solenoid is bad.