[kauboy]

Well I took my boat out with a group of fishing buddies for some night fishing and we weren't able to start the engine once we were done. We got pulled back to shore and I tested the batt and it was of course dead. I got a new much better one and all is well now. My question is, is there a way to pull start my engine and not need a battery in the horrible chance that this ever happens again? There is a groove in the flywheel for a pull line but I'm not sure about my engine's ability to do it. The probelm I see with doing this comes from my attempt to use a spare batt from a friends boat. We were not able to properly connect the terminals so we kinda rigged it. The engine would start, but if one of the connections slipped off, it would die. Is it supposed to do this? An older gentlemen told me that it should have a "magneto" that provides the spark utilizing the spinning flywheel and that a battery is not needed once the motor is running. Is this true?

Thanks for the help. I have a feeling this is going to cost me even more. Yippee :/

[F_R]

Under some circumstances, such as a bad starter, you can rope start it. But your motor does not have a magneto. It needs a battery with at least enough juice to work the ignition. Once you got it running, the alternator should have been able to keep it running.....maybe. It depends on how dead the battery was and why. Check your alternator/charging, the rectifier may not have survived what it just went through.

[kauboy]

I didn't think mine had an alternator. Where would it be located? Under the flywheel? So you think maybe the rectifier suffered from whatever caused my solenoid to go out?

[F_R]

Yeah, the alternator is the ring of small coils under the flywheel. That, combined with the rectifier is what charges the battery. I don't know if you damaged the rectifier or not. Just know that loose battery connections, disconnecting or changing batteries while running, and stuff like that will destroy the rectifier. I was just trying to alert you.