Is my starter, solenoid, or something else bad(with troubleshooting)

[kcgolf]

I was having problems with my motor cutting out at high speeds or not wanting to get up on plane. Squeezing the ball during these events allowed the motor to maintain high rpms. I figured it was the fuel pump and ordered a non-vro pump for my '86 60hp evinrude. I hooked everything up and when I went to start the motor it would turn very slowly and the starter would not disengage the flywheel. Here is what I did so far.

1. Motor turns freely by hand
2. Voltage at battery was 12.4 volts and 12.4 volts when checking the battery side of the selonoid
3. I wd-40 the shaft of the starter and checked connections all were ok
4. When starting the boat voltage at the batter dropped to 10.2
5. When starting voltage measured at the battery side of selonoid was 8.5-9.5 volts
6. When starting voltage measured at the starter was a similar 8.5-9.5 volts
7. I used jumper cables and hooked the battery directly to the starter and engine ground and got the same slow spin and voltage drop at the battery
8. I hooked my truck up to the battery so that I was reading 13.1 volts and ran the same tests above and got the same results.

At this time I think the starter is bad as I was not seeing a voltage drop across the selonoid. I also had another battery from my small boat and got the same result.
Could I have messed something up when I unbolted the starter to make room to work when doing the fuel pump swap? Seems odd that it worked fine and all of sudden would do that. When making the swap I didn't unhook it I simply laid it on top of the flywheel.

Any input would be greatly appreciated as I am scheduled to go the beach this weekend and would love to get some clamming and fishing in.

Thanks

 

[Auxlarry]

Could be a couple of things if you say it just happened when you removed and replaced the starter! Did you remove the wire from the starter? If so, you may have disturbed the terminal stud going into the starter, loosened it some way, or, you could have a bad ground where the starter bolts to the block. I'd remove the starter and clean the mounts and reinstall it first. then check all your connections to make sure they are clean and tight!

 

[tblshur]

If u going to take the starter off and have a starter shop nearby might have it checked good Luck​​​

 

[kcgolf]

Thanks I will pull starter tomorrow and look. I did not detach the power to the starter just unbolted the three bolts and later it on top of the motor.

 

[boobie]

Take it to a starter shop and have them test it if you haven't got the equipment to work on it.

 

[kcgolf]

So I worked late tonight so I couldn't get it to a real shop. I stopped in at autozone and the guy looked at it and said I have no idea how to test this.

I put the starter on the bench and hooked a wire from battery to starter and then hooked ground up to battery. When I touched the ground to the starter it would spin but the bendix would only lift up for a split second and fall back down and keep spinning. Should it stay up as long as the starter is spinning?