1978 35HP Johnson starter motor removal?

Hi...

Well I fixed one issue but another pops up. I still cannot get the motor to crank at any decent speed without pulling the plugs. So I wanted to take a close look at my starter motor and when I pulled the spark arrester off, I noticed that the electric choke was barely moving the butterfly plate so I re-adjusted that. How can I get to remove the starter? I found only one screw/nut/etc. That was the one under the arrester. Where are the others? For the time being, I only have the SELOC manual. It is a little hard to get it's pictures to match my starter motor. Plus, I am working outdoors and the rain does tend to be hard on the books anyway.

Thanks,
TerryMSU

Re: 1978 35HP Johnson starter motor removal?

Bump

Re: 1978 35HP Johnson starter motor removal?

before you tear every thing apart make sure its the starter. take a jumper cable hook to positive stud and fully charged batt. if it turns good then you know its not the starter. if it is ok its in wires clean all ends shiny clean going to starter and selinoid if stll not ok check all wires for any nicks if none found could be a wire still wires corrode frome inside out you may not see it

Re: 1978 35HP Johnson starter motor removal?

Thanks for the advice!

I tried that and actually jumped both hot and ground (with a parrallel ground from the original harness). I also used the crank position on my charger attached to the battery so I had PLENTY of jucie at the starter. No real improvement. One in a while it will hit just right and take off, but usually not quite enough to take off. The starter does get good and hot. Any ideas? ( idid find where one bolt goes thru the starter mount into the motor. The bolt is not in there, but I will be putting it in as soon as I get a little longer one. The one in the bottom of the motor is a little short. This leads me to believe that maybe there is a second one missing as well.

Any info?

Thanks,
TerryMSU

Re: 1978 35HP Johnson starter motor removal?

With the loose/missing bolts, could the starter not be getting a good enough ground to the block?

Re: 1978 35HP Johnson starter motor removal?

Indeed that appears to be the cause of the "weak crank". Put in a new stainless bolt and it solved the crank problem. Now if I can just fix the loss of spark on the upper cylinder. The motor actually started while I was trying to get the starter to crank. Only one cylinder sparking.

Thanks,
TerryMSU

Re: 1978 35HP Johnson starter motor removal?

if your missing bolts that starter could be binding on the fly wheel

Re: 1978 35HP Johnson starter motor removal?

Not sure if it was binding, but it is not binding now. I took it out for a run fishing and it cranked over fairly well and, just as important, after just a very few seconds, the second cylinder kicked in and seems to be consistently working at each start-up. It might be a thermal issue in the power-pack or maybe just a little weak in the first place.

Eventually, I will need to deal with the (potentially) leaking lower seals, but at least the rest of the motor seems to be OK.

Thanks again,
TerryMSU