Starter question again
 

I had new starters installed before I had the engines reinstalled in the boat 2 years ago Lol, to avoid having an issues with a starter.
I have had nothing but issues with these new starters!!
The new starters are "Arco" brand.
The first year they worked fine for a while then first the port then the starboard started clicking the solenoid. They always eventually started the engines. Not sure if its the remote solenoid one or the one on the starter itself but over the winter, I pulled them both and took them in and had the starter solenoids replaced. My understanding is sometimes they are using Chinese parts. Anyway, first time out this year they both clicked. Rap the key a dozen times or so and they would both work. Shortly after both starter motors starting struggling to rotate the engines even with both batteries. Not a typical Chevy grinding noise, just a very slow rotation of the engine then sometimes it would speed up and the engines would start. Other times I had to wait and try again. I am have a ridiculous amount of other problems so I pulled the boat and it's now back in my shop. I am pretty sure I smoked the port starter motor the last time I tried to start it so I'm going to pull them both and take them back in again. This struggling to rotate the engine is a new problem that I didn't have the first year ever. I have large battery cable everywhere so I'm pretty sure it's not that and again, this struggling problem didn't happen the first year.
I did replace one of the remote solenoids and it made no difference. Do I just have 2 bad starters??
Thanks for your help.

Wrong forum

My mistake. Thank you for pointing that out. Ill see if I can move it when I get back.

why do you say wrong forum ?

This doesn`t belong in the tech section?
General boating is not for tech questions IMOP

I get your point
but each day when i log in i simoly press on new post, wich brings them no matter where or which section they are posted... i even have to search to inow in which section they are if i wanna know it... which explains why i was not seeing the section... in my mind i was just on the oso forum.

You need to do some actual troubleshooting instead of guessing and replacing parts. I would start by removing, cleaning and reinstalling all of the ground cables. Then do the same thing with the power cables. If you still have the problem you need to take a voltmeter and see what the voltage is at every point of the circuit from the key switch to the starter.

I am betting you have some serious voltage drop somewhere along the line.

Thanks to whoever moved this thread. I am not able to because of my basic membership.
BillK, I checked over all the grounds when I reinstalled the engines last year. I didn't go over the positive side though. I have decent access to area's now after removing the exhaust so I will go over all of the connections.
I did not at the time of engine reinstallation but now am using a dielectric grease on many connections. Do you guys recommend doing that for all electrical connections?

Just had a very similar issue and it turned out to be the ground cable. All connections were good but the ground cable itself was bad and had a break in it.

I've seen battery cables that have been sitting in a small amount of bilge water get stiff and full of corrosion causing high resistance, from water getting through the insulation, cause starting issues.

I do not. Dielectric grease is actually an insulator.

And that is why you have to use a voltmeter to check them :) They might look perfect and clean but they actually are not.

I had starting issues and once I replaced all the battary cables they all went away

Also make sure ign timing isn't too far advanced at idle. Once had MSD distributor advance weights/springs rust (on both engs) and ign was stuck at full advance. Starter was fighting against cyls firing too early. Actually bent the starter bolts on one eng.

In addition to checking the batt cables and ground cables, check the voltage coming from ign switchs that engage the starters. I've seen where the ign switch was old and passed enough current to make the solenoid click sound but not enough to fully engage the solenoid. This lead to the contacts in the solenoid burning up prematurely.

BillK,

But it allows for contact penetration, which is why we see it in electrical connections all the time. What it really does is prevents corrosion and arcing around the contact points.

Thanks. Brad.

Regular EP2 style grease non-moly works great on all buss style electrical connections and battery terminals. 100x better than the spray on protection style.

I have one ignition switch that was a little hard to turn so I had already ordered 2 replacements. I assumed if the solenoids were clicking that the switches were probably okay and the problem is "downstream" of the ignition switches. Would be nice if this takes care of it.
It turns out that I didn't adjust the valves correctly after replacing the one set of lifters and then I went through both engines to better align the rockers. Anyway, I hooked up a remote starter switch directly to the starter solenoid and the starters worked fine every time I hit the button. Thanks for the heads up.

I once had the square plug under the dash full of corrosion. (yellow/red wire) It had enough voltage to click the solenoid but not enough to maintain continuity and actually engage starter. Took a while to find that one.

In the interest of closing out this thread, BillK nailed it. I got a buddy to help me troubleshoot this and he slowly walked me through my connections and checking voltage readings and there was a voltage drop at the slave solenoid. Hit the key "click" and it dropped to 6.5 volts at the large lugs on the slave solenoid. Not enough to trigger the starter solenoid. I attached the purple wire to one of the larger lugs on the slave solenoid and ran a jumper from there to the coils. In my defense, the sheet I got with the new electrical whip for the engines didn't say anything about the red wire (in the illustration) from the 50 amp breaker going to the slave solenoid. It looked to me like a straight shot from the breaker to the whip. I now have the wire from the breaker going to the slave solenoid and put the purple wire directly to the coils. That main red wire from the engine harness is not hooked up anywhere right now however everything seems to be powered up. I haven't pulled it out of the shop to see if it runs or not but the starters work perfectly now. Where is that red wire supposed to go?? I swapped out the old alternators for new high output single wire units so I don't need it there.
On the bright side, I now have more ground connections than needed so that shouldn't be a problem for a while. I have replaced brand new starters with brand new(er) starters. I have new ignition switches (they needed replacing anyway) and now have a better understanding on how some things work.
I knew the problem was going to be me, I just had to find out where I went wrong. My apologies to you guys that tried to help me. It's hard to help someone when you don't' have all of the info. I changed out the engine wiring harness and failed to mention that.
Thanks to everyone for your help.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...daeab77ef7.jpg

Thanks for the update. Glad its fixed !!!!

the engine side harness red wire that has the 50A breaker on it should be connected to the same post on the starter as the batt cable is
The other side of the harness....that goes to the dash....the red wire is the main supply of power for the dash. So it will will most likely go to a bus bar and then distributed out...your switches get their respective power supply...and your ignition switch is also hooked to it...etc

Lol!!! There's possibly another problem here😂🤣😅 Everything on the dash is working!!! Im just getting started on redoing the stbd wiring. I will look into this. Thanks

well that red wire is getting power from somewhere. Someone may have run it to the batt post on the back of the Alt instead of the starter....would still see the same power supply...just a different location. And if the Alt wire going to Batt would break or short then the dash would be dead all together......if the red wire was on the starter post then that Alt wire would be its own entity and you potentially would still have power at dash.
It happened to me once where the Alt wire rubbed against the exh manifold and shorted out. Smoke filled the cockpit and i was convinced we would be on fire. Lucky for me it was only the wiring from Alt to starter that smoked. Motor ran fine otherwise...

I forget...do you have twins? if so the power at dash could be coming from the other engine side as well...all depends on how its wired up...

Yes. At this moment the stbd engine wiring is still wrong so that is probably/ hopefully where the dash is getting power. Ill know in 30 minutes or so 👍

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