hey fellas i have a 1996 Mercruiser 4.3 liter with alpha one generation two drive. I was out last weekend and the boat started acting funny. it was very sluggish to start at first but finally did start and then drove great. We even shut the engine off for a couple hours and floated around then started it back up and it was very sluggish to start but it did start. I went out the following day and it was extremely sluggish the start but did start and then drove ok until we shut it off. Then went to start the motor again it would only turn over once or twice then click. I tried again, just click click click then a sluggish one or two turns of the engine then back to click click click. I felt the starter wires and they were getting hot. Got towed back. Today in my garage I unhooked all the starter cables.they were extremely corroded, dark black and green. I guess that explains the resistance in the heat build-up. I use jumper cables in place of the original starter cables.I jumped positive from a perfectly charged battery to the slave solenoid and it did nothing. that was to the yellow wire with red stripe. Then I tried the positive battery cable on the other side of the slave solenoid and it just clicked. Then tried the positive side of the battery cable to the yellow wire with the red stripe on the starter which is the starter solenoid. When I did that it just clicked as well. So is it the starter, or the solenoid or the slave solenoid or a combo of some kind? Remaining connections are all tight and not corroded and the battery is fully charged. Its just weird it does the same thing with new jumper cables as it did with crappy corroded cables. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
