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Can anyone advise please? The kubota v1903 engine won't start. When you turn the ignition the starter relay at rear of ignition panel makes a noisy whining sound, doesn't sound good. Red Lights on panel intermittent on off as you turn key. On turning key to start there is nothing but the whiring noise as you then turn the key into off position. Batteries are all OK. Voltage checked. What i can see, doesn't seem to be any lose wires. It just suddenly stopped working, there been no faults up till it stopped working. Starter has been working fine e every time. Anyone know what the fault is? Could it be the relay be the fault or something else. Where can I get hold very quickly of the relay unit? Relay info... Denso 12v starter timer relay 061700 - 3770. Thanks

Hello lookking for some advice, I started my boat today and for around 2 hours was all fine. I turned it off for an hour then decided I wanted to take her out. So restarted the engine after 30 mine I smelt burning and could see smoke coming from the starter and it was red hot. after I let it cool I had a tinker around with it & thought I’d start it to check everything was all okay.... my problem is that when I turned the Isolator switch on the engine started! The engine key wasn’t even turned on! Can anyone explain to me what is wrong or why this happened?

We have a BMC engine, yesterday, we ran the engine whilst moored and the engine did race a bit. Today, she is turning, in fact, she did start but cut out straight away; now she is turning over, but not starting - clues as to what it is? (edited to add detail)

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For pretty much the first time, I've hit a problem where mining the forum for info from past threads hasn't provided the answer (or rather, it's provided several possible answers, and I've no idea where to start!) So, here goes: My boat's engine (Thornycroft 80 = Mitsubishi K4D, keel cooled) has always started pretty well, either in a couple of seconds in warm weather, or after 10-15 seconds cranking in the cold, but a few weeks ago it suddenly became much harder to start, usually need two or three attempts of ~ 30 seconds cranking. But it was still starting, so I (stupidly...) put off solving the problem until I could get to a spot where I could moor up for a couple of weeks (I'm currently on the Thames, but was planning to move on to the canal in Oxford in a few days). And then this morning it didn't. So I'm currently a bit stuck, and in desperate need of the forum's collective wisdom (and hoping that Abingdon council are going to be understanding about me breaking their brand-new 3 day mooring limit!) Some more info: The engine turns over, but not fast enough. Fuel is getting through (lots of vapour when I crank). I changed the fuel filters just in case when the starting became more difficult, but it made no difference. I don't have a clamp-meter, but I think the starter is drawing more current than it used to: I've had a 150A fuse on the starter battery for the last year, and it's always worked fine, but the first sign of the starting problem was the fuse blowing (and the replacement went straight away too, so I've removed the fuse block for now). The starter battery is fairly elderly, and the alternator doesn't produce a great charging voltage (~12.7V, from memory). My domestics charge from solar, but the starter charges only from the alternator. The voltage on the battery after four attempts at starting this morning is 12.2V. I've just hooked the starter up to the solar to give it a good charge. The engine has been running fine once it started, and would restart pretty easily when warm (though still only after a couple of seconds cranking). From reading everything I can find here and elsewhere, the possibilities seem to be (a) a starter motor problem, (b) a battery problem - but I don't see why this would have come on suddenly, (c) poor compression, (d) the injectors need servicing. Is there anything I'm missing - and how should I go about working out where the problem lies? Thanks everyone!

I'm continuing to sort out the wiring in my engine bay and have successfully rewired the VSR to charge leisure first rather than starter, removed a pile of cables that had been left behind by previous owners adding/removing bits organically, added fuses where there were none, and isolators where I would like them - hoorah! The last thing I would like to do is add an isolator switch to the starter battery and am wondering what rating this needs to be. According to the Bukh manual the starter is: Gear Driven 1KW output. So, would that roughly translate to 1000/12 = 83amps, and is that continuous or is the cold crank current likely to be say double/treble to get it moving? The switch I was going to use is rated: Rated at 300A continuous (1 hour) at 48V DC and 1000A for 5 seconds. Thank you