Not starting....stuck fly wheel

[JimmySea]

Hi there, i hope some of you can give me some advice. First of all ill give you a bit of history. I am still a novice when it comes to boats, as ive only had my first boat for 3 months or so.<br /><br />It is a mid 80's fletcher arrowflyte with a mid 80's 70hp mercury outboard with a thunderbolt ignition. Previously with the past owner the boat was kept in a garage and used for water skiing on a freshwater lake. I on the other hand live on the coast and the boat now has a permanent mooring in the harbour in the seaside town i live in. Ive had it in there for 3 months and have been out on it in the sea about 8 times for an hour or so each time. <br /><br />Now the problem....excuse my non technical words! When you turn the key in the ignition, the engine does not turn over. The only thing that happens is that you here a little click in the outboard, which when i took the casing off noticed was a little cog moving up to turn the fly wheel. On closer inspection i realised that the fly wheel is actually jammed. It will not even move by hand, which it used to. I tried manually starting it with a rope around the fly wheel which i have succeded in before, but the wheel will not budge. I have oiled the engine but does not seem to have helped. <br /><br />I must be very honest and tell you all i have not been fluching the engine out, as there is not facility to do so in the harbour, and non of the other boat owners do it either.<br /><br />To me this sound like it might be a big expensive problem, and i am quite concerned about it. THe boat will be comming out of the water in 4 weeks to be garaged for the winter, and it shall go to marine engineeres first, but until then can anyone shed any light on the problem. What i am trying to find out is has the engine seezed up and will it be repairable. <br /><br />Thankyou <br />James in north yorkshire england

 

[Laddies]

Re: Not starting....stuck fly wheel

James, the engine could be stuck or the lower unit might be the problem, I don't live on the salt pond so I can't really give you any quick fixs put I can tell if you leave any outboard in salt water over a short peroid of time it will self destruct, repair cost will greatly depend on the problem, but salt water damage is expencive to repair

 

[Chris1956]

Re: Not starting....stuck fly wheel

James, As Laddies said, either the lower unit or the powerhead is seized. When you drain the lower unit, if the oil is not full of water or otherwise milky, it is likely the powerhead rusted up.<br /><br />If you tilt the motor up full and put some penetrating oil into the spark plug holes and let it sit, it may free up, if the problem is in the powerhead. Sometimes the inner water jacket of those powerheads gets a small leak, and a small amount of salt water gets into a cylinder and rusts the rings to the cylinder wall. The penetrating oil may cause it to loosen up. I have had to insert a brass rod through the spark plug hole to the piston top and then rap it with a hammer to break the piston loose, under these circumstances.<br /><br />If it is a powerhead seize and it breaks loose fairly easily, you can remove the transfer cover (starboard side of motor) and inspect the rings on that cylinder for damage. Maybe you will get lucky and the damage will be minimal.