Starter on Yanmar 3YM30 replacement

dgadee

dgadee

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I am anchored up the Arno River near Pisa and having problems with my starter - it spins with power (from the battery direct) but won't engage. I presume the solenoid is the problem.

I think only two bolts hold the starter in place? If I can't get a mechanic how hard is it to change just the solenoid.
 
Doesn't really answer my question. It does give the Hitachi replacement code. Only £80 for the whole starter if I was at home.
 
It can be that the solenoid windings have failed, in which case replacement is probably necessary, or it could mean that dirt/rust is preventing the plunger mechanism from moving. If you connect a wire from the battery to the solenoid terminal can you feel a click? If so a cleanup might be all that is needed.
Sorry cannot help directly with your question. Older Bosch units can be stripped but I don't know about Hitachi.
 
vyv_cox said:
It can be that the solenoid windings have failed, in which case replacement is probably necessary, or it could mean that dirt/rust is preventing the plunger mechanism from moving. If you connect a wire from the battery to the solenoid terminal can you feel a click? If so a cleanup might be all that is needed.
Sorry cannot help directly with your question. Older Bosch units can be stripped but I don't know about Hitachi.
Click to expand...
I connected a wire to the large solenoid terminal I had to use last year to start. No click. Just a whirring.

There is a Yanmar spares agent in Livorno. Only an hour by public transport. But no doubt the Hitachi would be cheaper from a car parts supplier.

We are in no hurry.
 
dgadee said:
I connected a wire to the large solenoid terminal I had to use last year to start. No click. Just a whirring.

There is a Yanmar spares agent in Livorno. Only an hour by public transport. But no doubt the Hitachi would be cheaper from a car parts supplier.

We are in no hurry.
Click to expand...
Try touching the wire to the spade terminal, not the bolt. Have you tried the old dodge of shorting the spade and bolt terminals with a screwdriver? or a short length of wire if you prefer. This bypasses any possible bad connections in the starter switch, wiring, etc. The loom for my 3GM30F has four connectors between the switch and solenoid. I bypassed them with a single wire that fixed all my starter problems.
 
Vyv, you are a genius! Touching the spade wire started the engine .... Then, when I switched off at the instrument panel I was able to start up the engine from there. Brill.

What do you think the problem is? Should I replace the starter anyway?

My knowledge of electron behaviour is not good.
 
dgadee said:
Vyv, you are a genius! Touching the spade wire started the engine .... Then, when I switched off at the instrument panel I was able to start up the engine from there. Brill.

What do you think the problem is? Should I replace the starter anyway?

My knowledge of electron behaviour is not good.
Click to expand...
The problem is a bad connection between the switch and the solenoid. Some installations have a relay to keep the current at the switch low but others (including mine) do not.
For now I would simply follow the wire through, cleaning up as many connectors as you can. In the short term you can add a wire to the solenoid spade terminal long enough to touch a convenient power source in case it happens again. I had one like this on my VW van, a well known sufferer of this problem.
Nothing at all wrong with the starter motor.
Medium term make up a wire to connect the starter switch terminal to the solenoid spade terminal, replacing the original. Unless there is a relay, in which case it may have failed
 
Can't really contribute, but I'm intrigued. Is the Yanmar starter a pre-engaged type, as I'd expect? If so I can't understand the OP's symptoms. For a PE starter to turn, the pinion must be engaged by the solenoid before the solenoid closes the main electrical contact to the motor itself.
The descriptions seems more akin to an old-fashioned inertia starter.
Just seeking enlightenment!
 
Sounds like sticky pinion .... if starter is spinning and pinion is not engaging ring gear ... then pinion is stuck or just not engaging.

Sounds like shorting the terminals gave a 'jolt' to the setup and pinion now engaging ...

I had similar on my VP end of last season ... the starter sounded like it was spinning fast enough - but pinion was not engaging ... the starter in fact was not spinning as fast as it should ...

I had the starter serviced .. solenoid replaced .... was fine for a while - but then pinion started banging ring gear instead of engaging fully ... fed up - I replaced whole starter and solenoid with a new unit - Perfect !!
 
earlybird said:
Can't really contribute, but I'm intrigued. Is the Yanmar starter a pre-engaged type, as I'd expect? If so I can't understand the OP's symptoms. For a PE starter to turn, the pinion must be engaged by the solenoid before the solenoid closes the main electrical contact to the motor itself.
The descriptions seems more akin to an old-fashioned inertia starter.
Just seeking enlightenment!
Click to expand...
As I understand it he was connecting the battery to the main terminal bolt on the motor, so it would have rotated without engaging.
 
There's, at least sometimes, a relay at the back of the engine that the start switch engages apparently because if the run to the start switch is long then the voltage drop can be too great for the starter to engage properly. I had that relay go bad but I think it was completely dead.

Changing the starter is pretty easy to do, but you do need a new one..
Yes, 2 M12 bolts. There's no tricky alignment or anything like that, or I got really lucky when I did it.
 
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Thanks for response Vyv. Refueler's VP starter, from his description, seems definitely to be the inertia type, which I thought were pretty much obsolete. Perhaps the Yanmar is the same.
 
earlybird said:
Thanks for response Vyv. Refueler's VP starter, from his description, seems definitely to be the inertia type, which I thought were pretty much obsolete. Perhaps the Yanmar is the same.
Click to expand...

Its actually a pre-engaged ... or using the incorrect term - constant mesh ...

https://auto8images.com/img/S02-8030-1.png

My Perkins in the other boat has the inertia Bendix type ...

I find it interesting when actually viewing both types off engine ... the pre-engaged still has a movement associated with it ... but of course nothing like the bendix type.

Looking online - the Yanmar has similar pre-engaged design to my VP starter ...

https://d3365vf2odvlwg.cloudfront.net/Bilder/produktbilder2/RECSHI0080.png
 
Refueler said:
.....I find it interesting when actually viewing both types off engine ... the pre-engaged still has a movement associated with it ... but of course nothing like the bendix type......
Click to expand...

Obviously, neither type should be engaged when the engine is running. The difference is how the starter gear moves in and out of engagement.
 
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