Hey everyone,<br /><br />Well, got the engine back on the boat yesterday, tried to fire it up in a tub of water... When I turned the key to the start postion, 2 things happened:<br /><br />1: Automatic choke and air intakes click to their positions (full open i assume)<br /><br />2: Starter solnoid clicks loudly. <br /><br />Starter does not turn. OK - fair enough. I take it off and bring it to Autozone. Have the guy hook it up to the test machine. He comes back and says it's dead. OK, fine. Take it home and take it apart. Open it up, full of the usual graphite dust and such from the brushes. Blow it all out, and take a wirebrush to the rotor contact plates, make them nice and shiny. Brushes have at least 1 CM left to them. Notice that the point where the positive screw touches the positive rotors is extremely cruddy. File and brush down to shine.<br /><br />It seems that at this contact point there might have once been a weld or solder of some type, but I'm not sure. Err on the side of caution, whittle wooden peg to jam the contacts together. Put everything back together. <br /><br />Put it back on the boat, and try it again. Success - or not. Cranks a total of about 6 seperate times, then goes silent again. Tried to primatively test the solenoid by shorting the "output" nut to ground while friend turned key to start position - rewarded with spark. So I'm 99% sure the motor is getting juice.<br /><br />Any suggestions on what I should do next short of buying a new one?
