Thanks to all who responded to my first post regarding the stuck starter drive.
I thought I'd post this to debunk some of the comments on the other two lively threads concerning marine vs automotive starters and add a few of my own.
The first thing I did was to remove the solenoid. I then placed a wire hook inside the nose cone and tried to pull back on the fork to see if the drive gear would move. It was still stuck. To verify if the solenoid was indeed bad, I hooked it up to a 12 volt source, had another person hold the plunger inside the coil and energized it. Well, that's a pretty strong solenoid and he was unable to stop the plunger from flying out and heading over the other side of the bench.
Anyway, I decided to take the whole thing apart. Below is a description of the picture, Top to bottom, left to right.
Nose cone (aluminum)
Nose cone sealing ring (seals between the magnet housing/sun gear and nose cone)
Nose cone sealing gasket (seals the slot for the drive fork in the nose cone)
Drive fork retainer
Drive fork (plastic!!!)
Solenoid
Permanent magnet housing (viewed from cone end)
Sun gear (plastic!!!)
Planetary gears (metal)
Bendix drive shaft
Starter drive
Starter drive retaining ring
Starter drive retainer
Armature
End cap with brush holder and brushes.
Upon complete disassembly there was no water intrusion past the nose cone.
The starter drive was actually stuck on the SPIRAL bendix part of the drive shaft. There was little or no grease here. There was also little or no grease on the sun/planetary gears either.
As far as being "marine", yes and no and this IMHO.
There are seals at the nose cone end (Water still leaked by the fork gasket into the nose cone), but not into the rest of the starter.
There is no seal between the end cap and the magnet housing. However there is a grommet for the power supply to the brushes through the end cap (all starters have this).
The drive shaft is not stainless, neither is the drive retainer or ring.
I'm going to clean everything up and reassemble it with a new solenoid as I dropped the starter in the bilge when removing it and bent one of the studs.
Thanks to Ron7000 for the link but there is no "slave' solenoid, just the one on the starter.
I'm also going to crack the cover plate as suggested to see if there is water.
It's entirely possible as that water has somehow made it down there when I drain the exhaust manifolds. (Thanks Lou C) I'm hoping that's what caused this.
To be on the safe side I'm still going to yank the OD anyway.
Thanks again to all who replied to the original post.
I thought I'd post this to debunk some of the comments on the other two lively threads concerning marine vs automotive starters and add a few of my own.
The first thing I did was to remove the solenoid. I then placed a wire hook inside the nose cone and tried to pull back on the fork to see if the drive gear would move. It was still stuck. To verify if the solenoid was indeed bad, I hooked it up to a 12 volt source, had another person hold the plunger inside the coil and energized it. Well, that's a pretty strong solenoid and he was unable to stop the plunger from flying out and heading over the other side of the bench.
Anyway, I decided to take the whole thing apart. Below is a description of the picture, Top to bottom, left to right.
Nose cone (aluminum)
Nose cone sealing ring (seals between the magnet housing/sun gear and nose cone)
Nose cone sealing gasket (seals the slot for the drive fork in the nose cone)
Drive fork retainer
Drive fork (plastic!!!)
Solenoid
Permanent magnet housing (viewed from cone end)
Sun gear (plastic!!!)
Planetary gears (metal)
Bendix drive shaft
Starter drive
Starter drive retaining ring
Starter drive retainer
Armature
End cap with brush holder and brushes.
Upon complete disassembly there was no water intrusion past the nose cone.
The starter drive was actually stuck on the SPIRAL bendix part of the drive shaft. There was little or no grease here. There was also little or no grease on the sun/planetary gears either.
As far as being "marine", yes and no and this IMHO.
There are seals at the nose cone end (Water still leaked by the fork gasket into the nose cone), but not into the rest of the starter.
There is no seal between the end cap and the magnet housing. However there is a grommet for the power supply to the brushes through the end cap (all starters have this).
The drive shaft is not stainless, neither is the drive retainer or ring.
I'm going to clean everything up and reassemble it with a new solenoid as I dropped the starter in the bilge when removing it and bent one of the studs.
Thanks to Ron7000 for the link but there is no "slave' solenoid, just the one on the starter.
I'm also going to crack the cover plate as suggested to see if there is water.
It's entirely possible as that water has somehow made it down there when I drain the exhaust manifolds. (Thanks Lou C) I'm hoping that's what caused this.
To be on the safe side I'm still going to yank the OD anyway.
Thanks again to all who replied to the original post.
