How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

Jtom7

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Feb 20, 2013
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Hello, I am new and am looking for help on how to try and start an 85hp Force outboard I recently purchased. I have the outboard hanging on a stand and when ready I will try to start it but am unsure if I can just hit starter with juice and it will start or if the wiring harness that used to go to the boat it was on ( which was cut off ) has to be connected to something in order for it to start?? There was no way for me to start this thing prior to buying it so I took a gamble and am hoping with a few parts from my old force motor that I can get it running. I imagine the wiring that went to the boats ignition must need to be connected to something but I don't know for sure or what would need to be connected. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. This is not a motor that can be pull started and it has no means of trying to start with a switch at this time. I must be able to connect something in the wire directly to the battery right? Please any help before I screw something up would be appreciated. Thanks
 

pnwboat

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

Attach the ground cable from the battery to a good ground on the engine block. Attach the positive cable to the starter solenoid. There are two large studs on the starter solenoid. One has a short cable that goes directly to the starter. The other large stud is where you want to connect the cable from the battery. There are also two small studs. One has a black wire that goes to ground. The other small stud has a yellow wire attached to it. To engage the starter, take a wire or pair of needle nose pliers and short the small stud with the yellow wire to the large stud attached to positive side of the battery. If you have a remote starter, that's even better. You'll get a small spark but that's normal if you use pliers. The easiest way to stop the motor is to simply manually engage the choke, or cover the carburetor openings with your hands. You could also engage the Kill circuit by grounding out the two white wires attached to the vertically mounted terminal block on the side of the motor.

FYI...you can pull start the motor, but it might be difficult with it on a stand. The ignition system is self energizing. All you need to do is to get the flywheel spinning and you're good to go. The battery is only used to engage the starter and power any accessories on the boat.
 

Jtom7

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

Thank you very much and sorry I took so long to reply. I followed your instructions and they are exact in procedure and description so that's very cool. Sadly my starter is only turning very weakly and slow so now I must figure out why. I'm thinking to try a new set of jumper cables because last summer my starter worked just fine and my battery is barely 6 moths old plus I tried my old truck battery too and same thing. I am hoping maybe this set of jumper cables is junk or weak in conducting proper volts. The gear end of the starter is stuck up engaged with flywheel too and I'm unsure why it doesn't seat back down when I stop engaging solenoid. If you have any thoughts on this please feel free to share. I'm really hoping I don't need a new starter and don't know why I would cuz it is turning just weak. Thanks again
 

pnwboat

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

The starter draws a considerable amount of current from the battery. If your jumper cables are not good quality or are in poor condition, then there is a possibility that they may not be able to supply enough current. The gear is stuck in up position because the motor did not start. This is normal. The starter itself is very simple to take apart. The silver end cap where the battery cable is attached has the brushes. Sometimes grease and crud build up on the brushes and can cause the symptoms that you are experiencing.
 

Frank Acampora

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

These engines are very difficult to jump start. It is much better to connect the correct battery cables to the battery, solenoid, and ground then jump from the battery side of the solenoid to the yellow start wire on the solenoid. Jumper the battery to a start charger or another good battery if necessary.

When the starter turns slow and if the engine does not start, there is no flywheel inertia to spin the bendix back down. This is normal
 

Jtom7

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

So today I tried 3 different sets of jumper cables. I tried direct to starter and tried solenoid with jump to yellow wire. I tried my brand new truck battery my old battery and my 6 month old freshly trickle charged marine deep cycle battery to no avail. It is still turning very slow under flywheel load. I took starter out and bench tested it and it spins like crazy and seems to work just fine when under no load. I took starter apart and brushes look great no dirt or grease in it and armature looks great too. Carefully reassembled and bench tested again and works great under no load. Put back in and tried and it just can't turn flywheel strong enough. I can turn flywheel by hand so I know it not seized or anything like that. I also took it to auto zone so they could test it and it spins beautifully on their tester but their machine says it failed but I think the reason it failed on that machine is because they input a totally different car starter in machine computer so that the machine would begin the test. Short of buying another starter which seems crazy to me I just don't know why else this darn thing can't spin flywheel more than a few inches at a time. Sounds crazy but it can't be the cold weather can it?? I mean its 37 degrees here today. Any more input or time to buy a starter?
 

pnwboat

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

Well there is a possibility that there is something bound up in the gear case, but if you can spin it over by hand I doubt that there is a problem there. To totally eliminate the gear case, you can drop it down. May be more work than you want to do, but it's up to you. I suspect that your starter is the culprit.

Just a word of caution on replacement starters..... generally speaking, you get what you pay for. The lower cost starters have a higher rate of failure right out of the box than say the ARCO brand. You can get a good low cost starter, but it may take 1 or 2 trys to get one that works like it should. If you're willing to put up with the possibility of inconvenience and wait time shipping back and forth, then the lower cost one's are an option.
 

Jtom7

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

Hi again, I used bigger wires from my boat instead of all these different sets of jumper cables and attached them to battery and then shorted the yellow wire to the power on solenoid and now it turns much better. I can't believe 3 sets of jumper cables and not 1 was big enough to handle the current needed. I Knew it couldn't be the starter. I Wanted to try to start it but its rather cold here and will get down to 18 degrees tonight so I'm gonna wait cuz I don't want any water to freeze in the power head overnight. I'm sure most of water drains but I'm new to boat motors and didn't wanna take a chance. Is it bad to put water to an outboard and try to start it in cold weather? Thanks for all replies btw
 

jerryjerry05

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

The jumper cables are generally only 12ga or lighter.
The least you need is a #4
Most of the water drains out.
It would reallllly have to freeze hard to do ny damage.
The connections need to be tight!!!
Try taking out the plugs and see if it turns better.If so!
Do a compression test.
 

pnwboat

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

Sure sounds like it could have been the jumper cables if switching to the larger boat cables improved cranking speed.
 

Jtom7

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

It most def was the cables for sure. Today I attempted to start it and good news it starts!!! U guys were so helpful in how to do it Thank You all so much! So happy at moment but now to my next question for u helpful gentlemen. The motor on my boat is a 1989 85hp force and this one that runs now is a 1988 85hp. There are some slight differences I can see in parts in the motors so they are not exactly the same. My next dilemma is deciding how to get running motor on to my boat. Is it easier to pull old outboard off completely and then mount this one (which would mean filling holes and re drilling cuz the mounting brackets are a little different) or is it better/easier to pull power head off running outboard and put it into my already mounted outboard? I am 99% sure the power heads are interchangeable but not certain. I just assume cuz they look so much alike and are only a year apart that it must fit the drive leg or whatever it's called without any issues. What do u guys think? I really don't want to have to drill holes and all that. Thanks again guys.
 

pnwboat

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

Have you thought about swapping the mounting brackets from the bad motor to the good one? I'm pretty sure the power heads will swap with no problems.
 

Jtom7

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

Yes I've thought about swapping the mounting brackets from bad motor to good one but was unsure if I I'm supposed to remove it from the horizontal or the vertical shaft. There is a shaft that runs vertical through the outboard housing which then attaches to the bracket with a horizontal shaft. I would guess the horizontal cuz the vertical shaft might not come out without pulling the power head?? Would I need to remove bad motor from boat with mounting bracket still attached and then swap brackets or can I pull one of the shafts and remove motor that way? I hope u understand what I'm saying. I was going to attach a pic but haven't figured out how to do that.
 

pnwboat

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

On second thought....I looked at my set up and it looks like you'd have to pull the old motor off to get at everything. Probably the most time consuming. Easiest way to do it would be to swap the whole motor plug the old holes and re-drill. It's not a big deal really. Use wooden dowels coated with some 3M 5200 sealant to plug the old holes with some 3M 5200 to seal the ends. It's white so if your hull is white, it's not that noticeable. It may take a few days in cold weather for the sealant to set up. Really tough stuff and messy to work with but it does the job well. Set the replacement motor on. Drill new holes, bolt it up and you're good to go. Double check and sure the cavitation plate is set at the same level as the bottom of the hull.

Maybe some of the other folks can chime in, but each method, swapping power heads, swapping brackets, swapping whole motor has it advantages and disadvantages. I think swapping the whole motor is the easiest, followed by swapping just the power head. Bottom line is....ultimately it's your choice.
 

Jtom7

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Re: How do I stand start my 85hp Force outboard? Please read

Hi again, if I pulled my old motor and then swapped the mounting brackets so that the original boat bracket goes back on I have to put sealant on the bolts that go back thru the hull right? Is that the same sealant 3m 5200 to seal the mounting bolts or is it something different? Sadly I am having a hard time deciding which route to take cuz I feel like its best to swap motors completely so that I avoid messing with the power head at all but my original outboard is in almost new condition (minus the piston hanging out the side lol) so it would look nicer if I just dropped this power head into it. Ugh, I'll figure it out. So for now that's my only question- the sealant to use when remounting the motor bracket to transom. Thanks.
 
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