Our 30U with a Westerbeke 27A has been causing us problems this summer. We turn the key, get the low oil pressure alarm, press the preheat and then a count of 10 later add the start button and get nothing. It has resulted in us sailing to our mooring a couple of times and sailing off our anchor once (both of which I am making part of another post). We have replaced the starter button first, and then the preheat button. Any suggestions on how to figure out what is wrong?
Thanks.
lloyd herman Rendezvous, 1987 30U
Port Washington, NY
It sounds like sometime after a failure to turn over, the engine will start for you. Is that correct? Do you do anything between failure and the next success?
Starter circuits are pretty simple. Check the battery for charge and that it doesn’t have any dead cells. If that’s okay pull the starter and have it serviced. I’ve just had starter issues myself.
Lloyd: When it’s not cranking, look at your volt meter on the panel and see if the needle deflects. That will tell you that the starter button is connecting to the solenoid. If it doesn’t deflect, look for a bad connection between the panel and the solenoid. Most problems with 12V systems is a bad connection. On yours, if it won’t crank, you can take a metal tool like a screw driver and short the small and the large terminals on the solenoid together. This by-passes all the wiring in the starting circuit and unless it’s a starter problem will crank & start the engine. BTW, when talking to a mechanic, don’t confuse not cranking with not starting. Not cranking means the engine is not turning over. Not starting means it’s turning over but will not run.
Joe Valinoti
S/V iL Gatto NS30U #221
Sea Harbour YC
Oriental, NC USA
When I was buying my boat last winter, the mechanic tried to start it as part of the engine inspection and it would not crank. He shorted a couple of posts on the solenoid and the engine cranked over and fired right up. So you might want to see if your engine can be started similarly. Mine is a Volvo MD2040, but if yours will start the same way it might be helpful to you while troubleshooting this problem or to others whose engine might fail to crank in the future.
The broker had a friend who is a marine electrician, so he popped right over to take a look at it. After a bit of tracing wires, he traced it to the safety cut-out switch below the shift lever. This is an Edson part, not a Volvo part, so yours might be the same as mine. It turned out that the switch had a small button with a steel tab draped across it so that a cam would activate it. The steel tab had fallen out, which would explain why the other broker had experienced a little trouble getting it to start a few weeks earlier, but had eventually experienced success. Without the tab, the cam could sort of rub against the switch button, but wouldn’t quite make contact inside of the switch. It was cold that day and did not work at all. But perhaps it would have worked correctly or intermittently on a warmer day.
I am not diagnosing your problem with this story, but suggesting something to look at that you might not otherwise think about. (We didn’t until the electrician came along.) If you can find the wires that come down from your shifter, you might try disconnecting one of them and then ohming across them while someone puts the shift lever in and out of the start position. I presume the switch is probably open until you put it into the start position, but I’m not sure. (By start position, I mean push in or pull out the gear disengaging button and push the shifter forward as if you were trying to start the engine.) In any case, you should see it switch between open and closed as someone goes in and out of the start position. If not, you get the joy of digging into the shift mechanism like we did.
Then a miracle occurred. The electrician said he was too cheap to pay the Edson price for that switch three or four years earlier, so he had tracked down the model number and bought a commercial ten-pack for half the price of one switch from Edson. He had used one and thought he still might have the others in his van. It took him half an hour, but he did find it and the whole thing was finished and working in a total of two hours.
One final observation. My engine kill handle (little T-handle next to the shift lever) doesn’t go down on its own and I often forget to push it back down after the engine dies. The engine does not crank over when the kill handle is up. But this is pretty obvious and doesn’t really cause me any problems - I just reach over, push it down, and try again. I presume you already do check this when the engine doesn’t start, since your problem seems to be intermittent.
If my boat had a neutral safety switch, I would by-pass it due to eliminating sources of problems. Same thing if you have to press the glow plug button at the same time, I’ve not come across a Nonsuch with a neutral safety switch yet. I’ve also not come across (on any boat), a pull handle that disconnected the starter circuit, just the fuel shut off.
Joe Valinoti
S/V iL Gatto NS30U #221
Sea Harbour YC
Oriental, NC USA
Well I don’t have a glow plug, but I do have a neutral safety switch. I guess that’s what it is. You push a button in the center of the shift lever pivot and then push the lever forward without putting the transmission in gear. It’s on a standard Edson binnacle as far as I can tell and I’ve had one on every inboard gas power boat that I’ve owned. I didn’t realize they were unusual on sailboats.
I also have a kill handle next to the shift lever. Yes, it has to shutoff the fuel in order to kill the engine, but the engine does not even crank over if it remains up. Frankly, I found that surprising when it first happened. I don’t know why it would need to switch off the starter, either. But it does. I know it does because I forget to push it back down about one time in four. And then when I turn the key, nothing happens. And then I push it down and the starter turns. Again, this is an Edson binnacle, but I suspect this might be happening down at the engine or vicinity because you are right that it makes no sense. In any case, it isn’t a problem for me.
That’s interesting, Brian. Having those switches in cars is very important due to the speed with which they can take off, boats not so much. If you ever get a dockline wrapped around your prop while underway, shut the engine down, put the shift into the FWD or REV position and crank the engine with the fuel shut off and pull on the loose end of said dockline. This will unwind it from the prop. Having learned this many years and boats ago you can see why I don’t like those features as they make it impossible to use that trick.
Joe Valinoti
S/V iL Gatto NS30U #221
Sea Harbour YC
Oriental, NC USA
Well, the mechanic was on the boat this morning and traced the problem to a loose solenoid on the starter, which he replaced and tightened securely. Maybe I did not need a new solenoid, but parts are often cheaper than mechanic’s time, so put a new part in and decrease the chance I will be paying the guy to return.
Joe V (not surprisingly) gets the kewpie doll - it was a bad connection!
The mechanic also installed a second set of pre-heat/starter buttons in the engine compartment giving me a back-up set of buttons to use if the cockpit ones fail again (of course if it is the solenoid or starter, all bets are off). I now I wonder if I needed the new pre-heat and starter buttons, but since he has saved all of the parts taken off, I will clean them up and test them in some manner to keep as spares.
Am going to the boat this afternoon, trusting the engine will “crank” and then “start” and going to go for a healthy motor about to charge the batteries
And then when I turn the key, nothing happens. And then I push it down and the starter turns. Again, this is an Edson binnacle, but I suspect this might be happening down at the engine or vicinity because you are right that it makes no sense. In any case, it isn’t a problem for me.