New Starter

[natsgrampy]

Have an 89 Sea ray with A 3.0 Mercruiser. Last season I replaced the starter. I got it from DB electric. I went to start it up yesterday and Click! I followed the instructions to troubleshoot the system and found the starter was not working. I had another new starter and replaced the old one. It starts fine now.

In all fairness, I did get a substantial amount of salt water into the bilge at some point last year. I cleaned and replaced as many connections as I could. The starter did get water into it.

My question is, will putting dielectric grease on the connections / terminals pose any problems? Will it help to prevent future issues?

 

[Barnacle_Bill]

Re: New Starter

Thoroughly clean then tighten all connections. The covering with a dielectric is a good practice to help prevent corrosion.

 

[Bondo]

Re: New Starter

Have an 89 Sea ray with A 3.0 Mercruiser. Last season I replaced the starter. I got it from DB electric. I went to start it up yesterday and Click! I followed the instructions to troubleshoot the system and found the starter was not working. I had another new starter and replaced the old one. It starts fine now.

In all fairness, I did get a substantial amount of salt water into the bilge at some point last year. I cleaned and replaced as many connections as I could. The starter did get water into it.

My question is, will putting dielectric grease on the connections / terminals pose any problems? Will it help to prevent future issues?

Ayuh,.... I use plain ole axle grease,...

If the starter went Swimmin',... It's done for,... especially in Saltwater, but freshwater will also kill 'em,...

 

[natsgrampy]

Re: New Starter

Thanks, I have the dielectric grease so that will be spread on the new connections

 

[djmakko]

Re: New Starter

besides the starter submersion, How would you rate DB electric starters?
i ask because i've just purchase one really cheap, compared with real OEM parts. which make me a little skeptical but thats all i can afford.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: New Starter

besides the starter submersion, How would you rate DB electric starters?
i ask because i've just purchase one really cheap, compared with real OEM parts. which make me a little skeptical but thats all i can afford.

I bought a DB electric mini gear reduction starter for my 302/5.0 six years ago. I do not have a huge amount of hours on it but it has worked flawlessly. In addition to that, being a smaller starter, I now have much more clearance between the top corner of my stringer and the starter. That means as water runs down over the stringer, into the bilge, the starter does not get as wet as it did when I had the huge OEM starter.