Hunting season - starter Help

[boaterntx]

Hi there,<br /> I will be getting to my stand via my 1976 merc 115 with thunderbolt ignition system. This means early morning starts & near freezing starts. the problem I have had this summer is that my start disengages. When trying to crank the motor the starter engages & cranks the motor fine, until the motor fires up & tries to turn over. When the motor first get any fire, the starter gear drops down, continues to spin but is no longer engaged to the flywheel. I have a good battery (540 cca), full charge. I have cleaned & lubed the starter shaft.<br /> Any Idea as to what is going on?<br /><br />also if you guys can lend any tips on cold starting this bugger.<br /><br />Tom

 

[tmcalavy]

Re: Hunting season - starter Help

Pull the starter and clean it real well, inside and out. They aren't difficult to disassemble/reassemble. Might need to shine up the brushes a little, or maybe just replace the critter entirely. I-6 Mercs are cold-natured. I would be tempted to have a small kicker on hand, perhaps just for blind duty. Just my 2 cents.

 

[WillyBWright]

Re: Hunting season - starter Help

Cold starting? Ouch! Motor fully down so any gas in the carb throats run into the motor. Squeeze the primer hard enough to flood the carbs (this is where it's important for the motor to be way down). Lots of choke until it fires and the warm-up lever all the way up. You'll want to get to the lever once it fires to rev it down. Good test of your reaction time, though. Good luck.

 

[SingleShot]

Re: Hunting season - starter Help

This is usualy a standard event with most starters. The gear springs into the fly wheel from the inertia of the shaft starting from rest. When the engine trys to lite it will spin faster (Flywheel) than the starter therby pushing the gear out of the way. This is to prevent damage to the starter gear. What you don't want is your starter gear to NOT disengage, this will tear up the starter and flywheel big time. It can become a pain when the engine does this half start as you need to stop cranking and then try again.<br /><br />Hope this helps.<br /><br />JK

 

[boaterntx]

Re: Hunting season - starter Help

Yeah, thats what it's doing.. the 1/2 start & I have to try several times to get it to actually fire up. as you can imagine it's much more of a pain on cold days. so I clean it up real well, should I also replace the spring?

 

[SingleShot]

Re: Hunting season - starter Help

I don't think so, the gear is disengaging fine. It's just the pain of not liteing the engine off fully. My 125 classic does this some, I just choke it good and throttle up a little before starting. On my engine it always starts better fully lowered. The fuel sits more even in carb bowls. I pretty much follow the above post on starting. Seems to work pretty good. Now if I could just get my snowblower to do the same.<br /><br />JK

 

[Clams Canino]

Re: Hunting season - starter Help

Ya... starter sounds fine. Work on the startng procedure so that the 1st time it tries to start it gets there.<br /><br />-W