My wife, kids, and I stayed at a State Camp Ground at a fairly small local lake (a little over 4000 acres) for memorial day weekend. The boat was in the water from Friday night straight through Monday. There is no launch in the camp ground and you have to use the one on the other side of the lake (6 miles on the water, 9 on the road). The boat ran perfect all weekend! Monday evening I hook up the trailer and send my wife to the boat launch so we can get it loaded up and head for home. I climb in the boat, pull the anchors, hit the key and get a ZZZZZZZZZZZZ noise from the starter. I start to panic. Im floating away from shore, my wife is 9 miles away, and there is no cell phone service anywhere.
First thought is there must be a bad spot in the flywheel. I put it in gear, climb off the back of the boat so im sitting on the drive, and turn the prop as hard as I can with my hards about a 1/4 turn. Hop back in the boat, hit the key, same ZZZZZZZZZ. Now im starting to panic as I think how pissed shes going to be sitting at the launch with the kids forever while im still at the park, and then how pissed the park ranger is going to be when I back my trailer down the beach to get my boat out of the water because I have no other options.
I opened the engine cover, everything looks normal. I reach down and grab the starter. Its loose. The bolts must have worked themselves loose over the weekend. I push it back into position, wedged a screwdriver between the engine and the starter. Hit the key and she fired right up.
Made it to the launch no problem. The bolts are still loose since I havent had a chance to do anything with the boat. I think they're going to get some locktite....
Overall it was a perfect weekend with perfect weather, just one 'almost issue' at the end...
First thought is there must be a bad spot in the flywheel. I put it in gear, climb off the back of the boat so im sitting on the drive, and turn the prop as hard as I can with my hards about a 1/4 turn. Hop back in the boat, hit the key, same ZZZZZZZZZ. Now im starting to panic as I think how pissed shes going to be sitting at the launch with the kids forever while im still at the park, and then how pissed the park ranger is going to be when I back my trailer down the beach to get my boat out of the water because I have no other options.
I opened the engine cover, everything looks normal. I reach down and grab the starter. Its loose. The bolts must have worked themselves loose over the weekend. I push it back into position, wedged a screwdriver between the engine and the starter. Hit the key and she fired right up.
Made it to the launch no problem. The bolts are still loose since I havent had a chance to do anything with the boat. I think they're going to get some locktite....
Overall it was a perfect weekend with perfect weather, just one 'almost issue' at the end...
