Aaaaarrrrggghhhhh! And the season is passing me by!

[sogood]

Some may be aware of the fact that I finally splashed my refurbed Wellcraft back at the beginning of July. Since then, I've taken her out several times, when work allowed, and did some fine tuning and tweaking as needed. Last week, after doing some minor fiddling, I went down the bay and did some fishing, catching a few mackerel. All good, but I was aware of the dropping tide and wanted to get back on my mooring while I still had water. My harbour drains dry at low tide!

So, I set off early and all was good. Entered the harbour, idling towards my mooring with boat hook in hand. Lined up perfectly, caught my mooring buoy first time, but momentum pushed me on too much so I released it and came around for a second try. ( I'm VERY new to all this sort of thing, but getting there)

I came around in a wide sweep, avoiding other boats, a known sand bar and numerous buoys. As I set myself up for my second run, the boat suddenly slowed and wouldn't move forwards. My first instinct was to kill the engine. I didn't know if my problem was mechanical or otherwise. I then felt the boat being gently pulled backwards and an inspection revealed that I had snagged a mooring rope. The pennant line was wrapped around the prop with the actual buoy wedged up under the anti cavitation plate. I couldn't push the buoy back under water to unravel the line, nor could I rotate the prop with the buoy stuck where it was, so I had to cut the pennant to free the buoy.

Then I passed a rope through the end of the mooring rope, forming a long loop and allowed my boat to continue to drift away from my mooring. When I had drifted as far as the looped rope would allow, I pulled myself back into the harbour, towards my mooring and allowed momentum to carry me on, near enough to catch my mooring with the boat hook. So at least I was back on my mooring again and had access to my punt to get back on dry land while I still had water.

Next morning I returned at low tide and walked (yes, walked!) out to my boat and removed/cut the rest of the old rope from my prop, having better access to it. No apparent damage, prop spun in neutral and engaged forward and reverse, locking up where appropriate. Next evening I returned with the intention of taking a trip and checking that all was good. But it wasn't. When I turned the key, all I got was a single click. Nothing else. Both batteries and terminals all good, connections at the starter all good, as far as I could see/feel. The starter motor is very inaccessible and memories of the job I had when removing it during the refurb were coming back to haunt me.
I tapped on the starter solenoid, just in case, still no joy and I swapped out the master solenoid on the engine to no avail. So it looks like I'll have to pull the starter again, therefore the Aaaaaarrrrggghhh in the title!
I'll first pull the plugs and check for a hydrolock though I can't really see that being the case. When I snagged the line, the boat slowed first before stopping, on very calm flat water, travelling at walking pace. No backwash. Is this just one of those crazy coincidences?

Anyway, my big gripe is with the mooring line that I snagged. The mooring wasn't used by anybody and consisted of a rope, about 18mm, trailing for at least 20 feet as far as I could see. Tide difference is 3.0 meters. No chain, so it floated below the surface, held up by the buoy. A swinging mooring on a buoy with a minimum 20 foot radius! In future I'll make sure to trim up a bit when coming into the harbour, but in the meantime I have to sort out my latest problem. I just think it's inconsiderate to leave a mooring like this unattended and in such a way as to act as a trap for unwary boaters.

Rant over and thoughts on my problem much appreciated. Apologies for the long post.

 

[Freebee]

i would turn the engine over by hand first see if it turns, but sounds like a flat battery perhaps uncoonected to your rope snagging, its just the joys of motorboating!!!!

 

[sogood]

i would turn the engine over by hand first see if it turns, but sounds like a flat battery perhaps uncoonected to your rope snagging, its just the joys of motorboating!!!!

I have two batteries, both on full charge, neither turn the engine and neither does both together. I'm also leaning towards coincidence. I may get down to it this evening. Fingers crossed. If I have to remove the starter, I'm thinking of cutting an access hatch in the deck. Needs a closer look see. Thanks.

 

[BruceK]

Before you cut anything check the engine main circuit breaker.

 

[luptonj]

Do you have a kill switch by any chance? Could you have knocked it off in the panic of catching a rope?

 

[BruceK]

I'm leaning towards fuse / CB. Tried starting it in gear with / or because rope and locked the drive up.

 

[sogood]

No kill switch and the circuit breaker checks out insofar as it doesn't go in, so it hasn't popped out, right? Thanks for the input.

 

[BruceK]

Check starter relay. What engine btw? If it's a merc 3.0 they have a rep for shearing a starter motor bolt and binding with the ring gear.

 

[luptonj]

Does it have an Alpha one leg? If I remember correctly they have a mechanism to temporarily stall the engine while you go into reverse. Don't remember if it would stop the engine turning over or would let it spin and not fire. Mechanism could have been damaged by the lock up?

 

[sogood]

Does it have an Alpha one leg? If I remember correctly they have a mechanism to temporarily stall the engine while you go into reverse. Don't remember if it would stop the engine turning over or would let it spin and not fire. Mechanism could have been damaged by the lock up?

It's a Mercruiser 5.7 with the Alpha One leg. The switch you refer to is the "shift interrupt switch" which momentarily kills the engine to allow you to get it out of reverse, by reducing the hold on the dog teeth in the gearbox. As soon as you are in neutral the engine kicks back in again. It all happens so quickly you don't even notice it. This switch only operates when coming out of reverse and it is functioning fine. If it is set wrong, then you get nothing at the starter, like the shift switch to prevent you from starting in gear. But I'm getting a click, unless I shift into gear whereby I get nothing at all, so that all checks out fine.

My feeling is that the starter solenoid just took a dive for whatever reason. Crazy coincidences sure can muddy the waters! Will update when I know more. Thanks again for all the responses.

 

[sogood]

So, I pulled the starter, which was marginally easier than when I did it first time. I took it home to do a proper bench test and found that the solenoid was doing diddly squat. Likewise the motor. Who'd have thought? I even removed the solenoid from the starter and tested it separately and still no joy.
Then I did a "standalone" test on the motor, and likewise, zilch.
I took the end plate off the starter to take a look see and some bits of plastic fell out. These turned out to be part of the brush holding set up and the result was that one of the brushes were hanging by the wire inside the motor and not making any contact with the rotor. There are two of these arrangements, each housing a pair of carbon brushes, so I only had three brushes operating as opposed to four. You would think that with only three, the motor might turn a little bit slow, as opposed to not at all, but who knows what the brush was coming in contact with to prevent any turning at all.
I could probably make up a replacement "plastic" piece, or even get replacements, but given that the solenoid is dead, or at least very sick, aside from what else might be wrong with the actual motor, I've decided to just replace the whole thing. I don't need it to let me down when I'm at sea and I'd be kicking myself if it did, given what I know.
Some things just aren't worth saving some money on.
All going well I'll have the replacement early next week. Watch this space and thanks for all the responses.

 

[sogood]

So, I fitted my replacement starter today and she hardly spun before firing up. The previous starter was seriously sluggish by comparison but the new one is a smaller, more compact, but more powerful unit. It spins much more quietly too. I guess I hadn't noticed the shortcomings of the old one until I had something to compare it with.
Anyway, all good now. All that's left is to enjoy what's left of the summer, although I intend to get out as often as possible all year round. Thanks again for the responses.