Can't start the boat

awthacker

awthacker

Junior Member
I am having ongoing issues. A few weeks ago, I topped off all the cells on both batteries, which were all low, then plugged in the charger. After charging, I still can't turn the boat over, so I'm not sure if it's the battieries or the starter, which sounds a little rough.

Today I test the starting battery with the $5 tester that sucks the acid out of the cells, and it looks good on the tester. So I put the battery back in and try to crank it today. Starter doesn't want to turn and I notice smoke on the positive battery terminal and it's hot to the touch. Picture of the smoke attached.

Any ideas?

BTW, the charger I use is the onboard Guest charger, so I'm not sure how well it does at recharging a low battery. But it does test good on the hydronic meter and show 12V. Any way for me to determine how many amps it offers?

Thank,
Aaron
 

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Sounds like the armature on the starter motor may be gone. It's causing too much resistance (drawing too much amperage) making the wires get hot and overheat. You could always pull the starter and get it tested.
 
Sounds like you have a short somewhere. I would clean all my connections real good to start. Check to see if your getting power to the starter. Starter may be going out, but that is easy enough to check. YOu can take the starter off and have it checked, or put it directly to a battery. I would disconnect my battery if you are not near it. That terminal getting hot is not good.
 
the terminal getting hot means you have a high resistance connection.... clean it... next go buy a digital volt ohm meter ($20 and no man should be without one).... check battery voltage after charger has been turned off for at least a few hours. Next test between the positive terminal on the battery and the positive battery terminal on the starter solenoid... should be 0.0 or very close. Test the same between the negative terminal and a good engine ground. should give the same results..... Now get a helper. While performing the same two tests have your helper try to crank the engine for just long enough to see the reading on the meter (IE half a second).... the reading should stay very low... If it jumps to say 10 volts you have found a problem.
Next check battery voltage across the terminals and have the helper try to crank again.
Write down the results of these tests and let us know. If we have to continue testing a load tester is next and there are a couple tests to do with it.
 
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4 stroke winterize, how

well the title says it all. How do you winterize a 115 yamaha 4 stroke, its my sons engine and i dont know, now if it was a good old 2 stroke that wont be a problem but a 4 stroke you cant fog it its fuel injected so what do you do to it
thanks
 
Thanks guys. Here's the update:

The starter had a little corrosion on the terminals. I cleaned them up and re-tightened but noticed some stripping on the positive post (this post is actually on the solenoid beneath the starter motor). While everything seems nice and tight, the nut can still continue turning but doens't get any tighter. So I have a suspicion this has something to do with it.

After this process the starter still won't turn, but did seem to try a little harder than it was before. So I put the charger back on it and will try again tomorrow morning. If it's still not a go, I think I'll pull the starter.

Lee, before pulling the starter, are you saying that I could just run two wires directly from a battery to the starter and expect it to turn. I tried this with just touching the bare wire ends to the posts, but got no results. It could've been because I wasn't making a good enough connection, or my spare battery could've been weaker than I thought, or the wire I was using could've been too small (but it didn't get hot, so I don't think that was the issue even though it was much smaller than the wiring on the boat).
 

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BTW, I do have the Perko selector switch that came up in another thread. I guess I need to pull this too and make sure everything is tight. Do any of the symptoms point to the switch as part of the problem? (The smoke only showed up on the battery, not at the switch).
 

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so I guess you aren't going to test like I said? You have one or more of 3 problems... high resistance somewhere, a bad starter and or a bad battery. you can guess or you can diagnose.
 
Does the motor turn?...it's not locked up is it?...disconnect the battery and turn the flywheel to see if it'll turn...other than that, I'd bet on CB's diagnosis...
 
Disconnect battery,starter wires and fule supply. Get a hot battery and jumper cables. Ground the negative cable on block. Touch positive cable to positive starter lug (just for a second). If it spins real hard and fast its probably ok. If it is dragging and slow its time for a rebuild or replacement of starter (if your sure battery is good). If it jumps up and is not spinning flywheel, you have other issues.
 
Bad news guys. The battery is good and the starter is good. I do believe the solenoid is bad and should be replaced, but the bigger problem is that the flywheel is seized up. So much so that I can't bang it free with a hammer and screwdriver. One plug has significant corrosion on it... the other five look good. So I guess the next step is to open it up and see how bad it is. Kinda bummed - I'm no mechanic and have never opened up an engine, but I'd rather learn something than overpay to have someone else do it. After all, it is the perfect time of year for this.
 
Has the motor set up for a real long time? Did you try turning flywheel with a plug out? I would probably have a mechanic tell you if it is blown or not. Those engines are way more complicated than you think. You could try squirting some oil down the spark plug holes and let it sit over night then try to see if that helps break it loose. It is odd for it to just lock up like that unless something is really wrong.
 
Kevin, I only got to step 1 and there was exactly 10V between + battery and + starter. My father-in-law was the helper and he said the solenoid is bad because it stayed energized after he turned the key off. It caused the battery to smoke until he turned it off at the selector switch. It also has some stripping on the grounding post, so just needs replacement.

Lee, it definitely looks complex. I sprayed deep creep in all cylinders. Tried turning the prop... no luck. Then worked our way to the flywheel and couldn't turn it either.

The history on it is this: We moved to a new home in late September, so I pretty much quit fishing for two months. I've never had trouble with this engine since I got it in February.

Last succesful trip was labor day, so 9/5.

Next trip was on a friends boat, then we attempted to run offshore on 11/14. I had trouble starting it the night before, so I put some new plugs in it and sprayed deep creep. The boat started fine, but wouldn't run much higher than idle and wouldn't rev up. We take it back home and scrub the dive trip. Next day it sounds really good on the hose, so I'm believing that the floats were sticking and may have freed themselves up (this is a friend's suggestion).

Then my Dad comes in for a week at Thanksgiving. We planned on launching the boat on Wednesday, so 11/23, for a test run. Boat won't start, we guess bad battery and plug in the charger. Next day, we try to start it again and notice the battery getting hot. No time to mess with it that day and some construction began at the new house the following week, so I haven't gotten back to it until this weekend.

This morning my father-in-law was over and he kinda took over the diagnosis. He says there must be water getting in from the cooling system. He's surprised the cylinder could've been compromised without the overheat siren, but definitely feels like that cylinder is stuck due to corrosion. He says there's no point in trying to free up the flywheel because there is definitely a problem in there that we need to fix. He told me to slowly take that side apart and find out where the leak is and hope it's just a gasket. He wasn't very familiar with this engine type, though. Said his neighbor took one apart and couldn't get it back together.
 
If you cant turn the motor over by hand, pull the plugs and try again, if you can't turn it by hand then, look at the plugs, if they all look good, drop the lower unit and try again, if you still can't turn it over, start pulling the heads off and take a look, if you don't find anything there, pull the flywheel and make sure the magnets aren't bound up
 
Thanks. We did try without plugs and one is corroded. Should I drop the lower unit, or go straight to the heads?
 
I had a 95 112 Johnson burn up due to clogged jet, I had just had them all rebuilt ran good for a couple of weeks then started getting crappy. Would not idle I did not think much of it. We sat at a blue angels show in a little cove here got ready to leave and boat would not plane. I was about nine miles away from launch. Proceeded to run motor as much as it would go (big mistake) until it would die then recrank it until we got home. This would be lugging the engine. It blew up bigger than you know what and I never got a horn or nothing beside bad performance. In my case it burned up a cylinder. Bought a replacement used suzuki for that boat for way cheaper than fixing it. If you ever get that flywheel to spin check compression before wasting anymore time. You would probablly be better off looking for a powerhead to stick on it and be done with it. That is a pretty common engine there are many out there. Good Luck it really sucks when the engines won't cooperate.
 
Okay, opened up the starboard side heads today. To me, they look really bad but I don't anything about engines. There is a grit in there, as well as some rust colored oil?

I think I know where the grit is from... when I was originally installing the engine after purchase, I tried to start it with the cowling on and the plugs out.... BOOM! Then I used the fire extinguisher and some overspray definitely entered the cylinders. I tried to clean it up best I could with seafoam, but never considered opening up the heads. I was a bit too timid to pull the heads and didn't know it was this easy or I would've cleaned it up a little better.

Anyway, I'm gonna wait to hear back from someone on what I should do next. It's not very easy to get to the flywheel through this optical ignition system, so I'll see if I can turn the prop and report back.
 

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