At Lake cumberland PR the power wire to the battery grounded against something and caught on fire. I pulled the starter off the other day and had it rebuilt and cut the end off the power wire where it burned through. When I try and start my motors the starter will not disengage. It isn't turning over correctly and I have to jump back and turn the battery switch off the make it quite. Here is a picture of the starter. I have 3 wires (large red to battery, smallred red, and an orange) on the large post and I have a yellow/red wire going to the small post on the right. What is going on with this thing? Is something wired wrong or have I lost a relay or something.

Are you sure it isnt burnt further up and it may not have melted the jacket

Sounds like they put on a bad solenoid unless the key switch is sticking.

Near exact thing happened to me the other day, labor day to be exact. When i rebuilt my motors I put a new starter on the port engine since its so hard to get down there to change it. Well, I opened the hatch to check oil etc before I head to the lake. As soon as I opened the hatch I could smell something electrical burning/burnt. After running the SB motor and everything checking out ok I went for port. Heard the standard engagement but kept getting nothing. Reached under about 10 times of tapping/sledgehammering to no avail. Got under to motor to change it and could just feel the burnt wire on the starter. What turned out happened was the last time I flushed it for a few minutes the ignition switch happened to hold the started engaged during the flush (never heard it) but it blew the internals to pieces. Moral of the story, I swore it was the "starters fault" but turned out to be something simple as a bad switch.

Also, on at least my aftermarket starters, there is two places you can put the small gauge trigger wire (yellow or yellow with red trace??) I believe if that on the wrong one it will keep it engaged or something to that effect.

You can also test using a charger/jumper cables. Put the black/neg to the chassis of the starter and put the red on the large stud that has nothing on it (hold on because it has quite a bit of rotational torque and will make you jump). If correct NOTHING should happen... If it does its bad. If that test passes, then carefully touch it to the other large stud. This time it should spark a little and cause the starter to run but not engage the solenoid. If that works, touching the positive to one of the small terminals should cause the solenoid to spring out but not rotate the starter. (mine is the one that when bottom mounted to the block is the small stud closest the the block, basically the harder one to get to when installed). If that works then touch the large stud with nothing and the just found small stud at the same time and watch to see if the solenoid engages and starter runs. If everything works then its something in your boat or wiring.

George

Just looked at your pics. For about $60 bucks you can get a gear reduction starter that comes with new bolts. I had those old 30 lb starters and the diff between the two is amazing in terms of cranking speed and honestly weigh about 10 lbs less.

These are the guys I use and have had no issues (above issue was related but not starters fault).

http://www.dbelectrical.com/p-5837-n...0031-6562.aspx