Once and a while my starter would grind when I tried starting my boat. So I took off the starter and found both bolts were slightly bent. I am assuming the bolts must have come loose and the torque bent them. I know the previous owner had a starter bolt broke on the other motor and had to pull the engine to fix it.

Should I put lock tight on the new bolts, I have never heard of starter bolts coming loose.

A lot of people/ mechanics fail to replace the starter support bracket that attaches to the front of the starter. This places all the load on the 2 vertical bolts at the nose end.

David

My motors were built in '98 by Innovation and they said they stopped using a support bracket in '94 when they started using the smaller style starter.

Thanks for the reply, it makes sense to put a support bracket on it and I am sure I could find one easy enough.