New Starcraft Islander?and I have general boat questions!

[ezmobee]

That's the right stuff. You want Extruded Polystyrene. Expanded polystyrene is the white little ball stuff that does absorb water.

 

[jbcurt00]

Yep ^^^ expanded polystyrene (EPS) is the white beads stytofoam cups and cheap coolers are made of, is sold at HD/Lowes, and is NOT what you want.

Extruded polystyrene (XPS) is blue, pink or green IIRC and is what is pictured in Watermanns SeaNymph.

 

[Watermann]

Gunnels too are supported well enough to traverse to the bow cover.

 

[oceanfrank]

Ah! I see. ezmobee/jbcurt, thanks for making the distinction. I was under the impression that all polystyrene was bad, but I know what XPS is so I'll use that!

watermann: Thanks! Super good to know.

All: My new cables should be in on Thursday, so I'll report back with a better engine status update this weekend. Thanks for all your help so far!

 

[Stovebolter46]

You will have a blower in the engine compartment.
Its job is to remove fuel vapors that can accumulate in the bilge/engine compartment if there's a fuel leak.
If vapors accumulate and there is an ignition source then you can blow up. This is not an exaggeration.

There will be a switch on the dash to operate the blower.
When you flip the switch you should be able to hear the blower. It's like an exhaust fan.
There should be a 3" to 4" dryer type hose quite low in the engine compartment then attached to the blower and then vented out the boat.

Run this for a minute or so before you start the boat. Also while at idle speed.

X2. Muy impoortante!

 

[Watermann]

Yeah so as you guys should know if you followed along that his islander is in the same rotted out 70's boat as all of our projects, not a sealed up enclosed finished project that might have fuel vapors collected in the covered bilge. He was just wanting to see if the motor would kick over and want to run. He doesn't need to be all worried about a blower fan with his 40 year old motor sitting in the open needing a blower fan running before he turns it over.

 

[oceanfrank]

MarcC, Stovebolter, Watermann: Appreciate all of the comments. I will always take more safety advice, and would rather hear the same thing 100 times than not hear it. But Watermann is correct, in this instance, everything is pretty open to the air (took out the doghouse already) and has been for at least the weeks I've owned it, and I was only intending to see if the motor would kick over. The fuel line is disconnected and I doubt there has been any fuel in the engine for a while so I think there's no danger of ignition. That being said, I have a brand-new fire extinguisher handy and will be extra careful simply because I have no idea what I'm dealing with. I'm sure it's probably better to blow out the bilge, so I'll try to locate the blower just in case. Keep the safety advice coming, and Watermann, thanks for setting the record straight!

 

[Pusher]

Haha, good call on the fire extinguisher. This one time when my old dirt bike backfired...

 

[Watermann]

I know your thinking ahead Frank so I'll throw out there the ever important leak test and subsequent hull repairs. We normally do this after the tear down and clean up of the hull. I've not seen too many of these boats that haven't developed leaks over the years that need to be repaired before the foam and new decking goes in.

 

[oceanfrank]

Pusher: yep. spend enough time with engines, and eventually, you'll need one!


Watermann: Ah yes, thanks for the reminder! I need to leak check this thing this weekend. Got some stainless rivets and that 5200 and some gluvit all ready to go although.... along those leak-checking lines, I'd love some opinions. Let's say I put it in the water and it just.... doesn't leak. Unlikely, but you never know. In that case, I assume it's a 40 year old hull, and so I assume the sealant in there is 40 years old, and I assume it leaked at some point and for all I know things are silicone-d back together or something. So if it doesn't leak, do I go in and preemptively replace some or all rivets just so I don't have to do this again in 5 years? Or other "as long as you have the floor out, you may as well do X" type things? Are there some rivets that are more likely to leak, that I should think about replacing either way (front? rear? near the stringers? etc)? I am planning to gluvit either way, but anything else I should do in the way of preventative stuff?

I think the absolute best thing to do would be to tear it down into panels and put 5200 in all the seams and re-rivit it back together, but that's out of my depth for sure. It'd end up just crooked and wonky and gross. Or is this more of a, "if it aint broke, don't fix it" type of situation, with these old aluminum hulls?

Thanks!

 

[Teamster]

I'd only replace a rivet if it absolutely needed it,..

If I had the deck out I'd use gluvit on the rivets and seems on the inside just because I could, But that would be it for me,...

 

[Watermann]

I would put water inside the boat on a dry driveway and see where the drips start and then get on a creeper and look for the leaker. Water is heavy so do not rely on the flimsy trailer jack, either block the tongue or leave it attached to a vehicle when you go underneath. Most common leaky spot is the keel plate area. What I do is lower the jack and add SOME water making sure the keel area up front is submerged to the waterline. Then raise the jack and move the water back. Be careful about adding too much water as the trailer could suffer and if you have bad bunks there could be hull damage. Oh and block the tongue before going underneath with a sharpie to mark the leaks.

I've never understood how one could pinpoint leaks from inside the boat on the water.

Don't remove any rivets that are not damaged and leaking. What are the SS rivets for?

 

[oceanfrank]

So, I bought new cables AND new terminal ends. Figured I would try new terminal ends first, and cables if those didn't work.

Put the terminal ends on, and nothing happened. Didn't even turn over all slow like it did the other day, just clicked. But it was the solenoid clicking and it was loud, so I know power was getting through there.

tried the cables, and nothing. Got back home and realized?I was trying to do it just with the outdrive lowered into a tub of water (for cooling), but because of my trailer height, the outdrive couldn't go all the way down. I know everyone has told me not to run it with the outdrive down, but all I was testing for was to see whether or not it would turn over fast like it's supposed to or slow like the other day. No gas in the system, no nothing that could make the engine fire. Figured I wouldn't harm anything just to hear how it turns over. But got home and realized, it was so much worse than the other day, where at least it turned over slow. It was literally not even turning over, just clicking really loudly. I wonder if there's some built-in kill or something for if you try to start it with the outdrive up? I can't imagine that new terminal ends made things WORSE, and it really sounded like there was some restriction somewhere. Like, just a big ol' meaty solenoid click, and then nothing. Is there something that would prevent it from turning over with the outdrive partially lowered? I can't think of anything else that could have gone wrong since last week.

thanks!!

 

[Patfromny]

The starter could be bad or the timing could be way out. Sorry to leave you guessing but not being there it is hard to diagnose. Pull all the plug wires off the distributor and see if that helps. Maybe just pop the cap off and lay it out of the way. If the engine kicks over better I would check timing. Otherwise it is a starter or a bad battery.

 

[Pusher]

I don't know much about electronics. I had my own troubles with a stator earlier this year on my outboard.

That said, it sounds like your next problem is the starter like Pat said. Your cables SHOULD be sending the juice to the solenoid from the sound of it. From there, when the plunger on the solenoid clicks down it should be bridging the gap and sending juice to the starter. Is the solenoid doing a solid click or a"flickering" click more like a chatter?

If not, then check to see if the starter's bendex isn't allowing the gear to retract. It could be the starters shot and not doing anything.... It could be the starter's gear is stuck in the engaged posjtion and the motor is seized.... It could be the starter is in a bad spot and needs some "convincing" where you turn the key and carefully tap the starter with a wood or rubber hammer.

I believe inboards have a fuze burried in their harness somewhere. My dad's boat had this issue last summer. They arched a wire somehow and the motor wouldn't respond to anything like it was just dead. My brother finally found something online about a fuse and spent a day digging into the wiring harness looking for it. I don't really know anything more about this but could talk to my brother if nothing else seems to work for you.

 

[Pusher]

A really easy test actually would be to unbolt the starter and "hot wire" it. I had a starter problem on my blazer once and it turned out the ground was bad on the starter itself. I don't know how yours is grounded.

 

[Watermann]

If it's a mighty clang when you try to start then the starter drive is hitting the flywheel. My guess is that intermediate housing has the driveshaft / bearings seized and it's not the motor. The way that starter was laboring to turn over that little 4 banger something was holding it back.

Pecking around on the motor tossing parts at this beast from a bygone era is only going to end up discouraging you.

 

[bobkat1864]

If the drive is still on the boat, I recommend that you pull it...if the drive is locked up it could keep the engine from turning over. I've never worked on a OMC but I'm sure someone will chime in about how to take your drive off.

 

[oceanfrank]

Hi Everyone,

Been a long time since I've had time to get down and work on the boat?work and family stuff took over the last few weekends.

I read through the latest comments and went down to try and diagnose what was actually happening. More recently, the solenoid started making a chatter instead of a solid click, so I went in to try and hotwire the starter motor.


The positive wire from my battery went to one terminal, and another wire from that same terminal that went to what looked like an ignition coil. and there was a thin yellow wire from another terminal that disappeared into the harness somewhere, which I assume was the ground. However, despite having it turn over fairly slowly a few weeks ago, I couldn't get the starter motor to even do that this time.

I tried with the positive end going to the terminal that would ordinarily be hooked up to the positive terminal on the battery, and the negative terminal hooked up to the ground on the engine where the battery terminal is grounded, and got nothing.

I posted a photo of the starter motor. Is this a common motor? common enough that anyone has had experience jumping it and knows what each terminal does?

https://ibb.co/cE9BMF


In this photo, the "top" terminal (the thick one) was the one with the positive connection that also went to the "ignition coil" thing (which may have actually been a junction box of some kind? It was black and square plastic like a coil, but there were probably 7 wires hooked up to it so I wonder if it just a distribution/junction box). Moving clockwise, the thinner terminal on the right was the one with the yellow thin wire.

The bottom terminal was hooked up to that weird plate thing in front of it. I tried jumping the motor various times with different combinations of that terminal hooked up and unhooked.

The very left terminal was always empty.

If I can take Pusher's advice and get the starter motor moving, I'll have a better idea of what I'm dealing with I think!

Thanks!!

 

[jbcurt00]

You'd get more motor help if you posted most motor questions in the correct motor sub-forum.

But reference this topic there and the motor topic here.

http://forums.iboats.com/forum/engine-repair-and-maintenance

Welcome back