Mercury 200 efi motor starter may be bad

[detoolman]

I just bought a used boat, the second time I took the boat out, it would not start. When I try to start the motor, the starter relay clicks and thats it.

Is this usually a starter relay problem? I was going to try and jump wire the starter at the motor just to take the key ignition out of the picture.

Am I on the right track?

 

[JB]

Re: Mercury 200 efi motor starter may be bad

No. The usual cause of your symptoms is corrosion hidden in battery cables or connections.

The upside is that it costs nothing to take all battery cable connections loose, scrub them shiny and reconnect.

If that doesn't work use jumper cables to the starter from battery + and to the engine block from battery -. If the starter fires you may have a bad solenoid, if not overhaul the starter brushes and bearings.

Good luck.

 

[detoolman]

Re: Mercury 200 efi motor starter may be bad

Ok i hookup up jumper cables to the battery, attached negative to ground terminal at the top of the starter motor, then touched the positive to the nut fed by ther starter and all i got was sparks.

Any suggestions?

 

[detoolman]

Re: Mercury 200 efi motor starter may be bad

Ok I read JB's post and he previously gave me a suggestion. I will focus on the starter now.

 

[detoolman]

Re: Mercury 200 efi motor starter may be bad

Ok, sorry it took so long. I just got around to pulling the starter motor off.

Before I cracked it open, i hooked it up to my car battery and it did not turn, so I moved on to step 2, open it up.

As I was pulling the bolts out of the cyclinder I noticed my hand was wet so I tilted the motor and out came a little bit more water. I then pulled the armature from the housing and a wet dirty mess was exposed. Looks like the starter motor was in the rain or submerged. The seller claims he pulled the starter motor from another motor and that this motor as a whole had not been submerged. I have a new one on order, so hopefully there are no more hidden suprises.