Engine/Ignition problem

[alan_fincher]

Im not seeing the picture?

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Clicking on it doesn't work for me either.

 

I had to look at the address shown on the "properties" of the image, then paste that directly into my browser.

 

Just to add to the confusion, I only now see Breals has posted a second image, with a different framing, and that the cable I assumed he was talking about on the left, (at my second attempt), is RED, not black !

 

So I think I'm still barking up the wrong tree, and think he must mean the short cable from solenoid to starter. This appears to actually dive inside the starter, rather than be bolted to an external terminal, so will be hard to fully check out without dismantling at least the end cap of the starter, I think.

 

But I'd still do some volts checks at the solenoid, and also disconnect that short cable, to see what condition it and the terminal underneath are in....

 

Sorry to have not got the right cable at first, but I think I've covered most of them now

[Breals]

The pictures seem to come and go... I'm not seeing them now! Here's a direct link. Pic

 

I think its clear I'll have to pass these comments on to a mechanic, rather than do any tinkering - the more in depth we get the more unsure I become. I do appreciate the comments though as I can direct his attention towards checking the connections/leads and cleaning/replacing as necessary.

Edited October 6, 2005 by Breals

[alan_fincher]

Sorry Breals,

 

I worked that out eventually - I'm being a bit dozy tonight, not helped by not spotting the second image.

 

This is the short cable that Yamanx said yesterday can be problematic.

 

It, and the connections to it, have to carry the hundreds of amps used for starting.

 

So as a minimum, get that nut on the solenoid off, and clean the contact areas, and the termination on the end of the cable.

 

It's hard to fully test this cable unless you can gain access to the other end, but if there doesn't appear to be a good joint between any termination, and the cable itself, it may well be the issue.

 

As I said, if you are managing to turn the engine, but not fast enough to start it, it could get fairly hot, if it's introducing excessive resistance. ("Hot" might easily be hot enough to burn, but if that's happening, it's not well)

[Breals]

Not a problem, I think I'm actually getting somewhere now. I really do appreciate the advice.

[Liam]

The pics aren't loading for me either, I get an image of the URL. I also get this when I clicked on the full URL of the pic.

 

Maybe a bandwidth problem? Use photobucket.

[bottle]

No problem can see all photos (firefox)

[Breals]

Can't see them in Firefox or IE6. Lets try Photobucket then...

 

Edited October 6, 2005 by Breals

[rayman]

never had a problem with that cable, ever.

[Yamanx]

This is the short length of cable I refered to in my first answer.

 

If the voltage to that point is low the starter motor will draw too many amps through it. It is usually the one that starts smoking when you have been turning the motor over and over. I have had to replace this cable recently as it had got very hot on ocassions and had no insulation left and the terminals were u/s.

 

At least you appear to able to get at it fairly easily.

 

The terminal that the bright green cable is attached to energises the starter. If you run a temporary wire to that terminal and touch it to live, taking care, your starter should spin as normal.

 

Another point I noted was you have three battery cables attached to your soleniod? Is the solenoid terminal being used as a junction point for direct feed from the battery? In order to test the starter I would remove all but the actual battery cable. Taking care not to short any out!

[Sir Nibble]

OK, the picture tells me that you have a paris phone d9r starter. Tha most common cause of a starter going "lazy" is worn bearing bushes allowing the armature to contact the field pole shoes which acts as a brake. Unlikely with this type as the armature is supported by ball & roller bearings, also these starters rarely suffer from brush wear.

Connect your meter from the starter main+ve to the casing and crank, you should see a minimum of 9V, any less and you can't expect the starter to work.

You can test for volt drop by cannecting the meter red lead to the battery +ve and the black to the starter +ve; crank and any voltage dropped across the cable should show on the meter. Similarly test across the -ve and solenoid contacts, more than .25V is unacceptable.

Given the time of year, maybe you don't want to cruise for a while and if the starter is faulty we can rebuild it online for the interest of all, I can talk you through it and source parts.

[John Orentas]

Breals.

 

Generally speaking starter motors on boats never wear out, but if your engine has had a past life there is that possibility. Talking about 'Lazy Starters' won't get us anywhere.

 

The overwhelming probability is that one way or another there is is a very high resistance somewhere in the circuit or you have dud batteries, as someone else said there it may be a good idea at this stage to get a known good battery and a pair of jump leads and connect direct to the starter, find if you can the heavy cable that disappears into the motor from the solenoid switch, connect the positive to that if you can't locate that connect to the main supply but you must one way or another also connect a positive to the solenoid. The negative jump lead to the body of the starter.

 

If you still can't spin the engine you will need to take the starter off and if you are confident enough dismantle it and clean up the solenoid switch contacts and/or the commutator and brushes. But this is all very unlikely as you have been using the boat, it is the sort of thing that occurs after period of inactivity (the most common cause of many problems on boats).

 

Try to fix it yourself, if you call someone out he will just want to sell you a new starter motor.

Edited October 7, 2005 by John Orentas

[Breals]

As an aside - I've asked the auto mechanics across the cut from me if they could service the engine. Would I be better off with a marine engineer, or are they likely to have the necessary skills?

[John Orentas]

As an aside - I've asked the auto mechanics across the cut from me if they could service the engine. Would I be better off with a marine engineer, or are they likely to have the necessary skills?

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If they are reluctant to do it don't ask them, servicing a diesel engine is a very simple matter, get someone to show you first time then you can do yourself.

 

If you need to take the starter off it may be an idea to take it to them to get it cleaned up.

[dor]

Just a thought here: Sorry if I've missed something earlier, but maybe, just maybe it isn't electrical.........

 

I once had a tractor which would struggle to turn over, even with a good battery. The starter motor checked out fine. I could just about get it to start cold, but if it stalled when hot it was even worse at turning over.

 

Turned out that the engine had been frozen at one time and the block had distorted, making it very tight. It must have been on the verge of siezing whenever it got hot!

[John Orentas]

Just a thought here:  Sorry if I've missed something earlier, but maybe, just maybe it isn't electrical.........

 

I once had a tractor which would struggle to turn over, even with a good battery. The starter motor checked out fine.  I could just about get it to start cold, but if it stalled when hot it was even worse at turning over.

 

Turned out that the engine had been frozen at one time and the block had distorted, making it very tight.  It must have been on the verge of siezing whenever it got hot!

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Sometimes you get a bit of pre-ignition, mine does that sometimes. The injection timing is quite a bit before TDC. The firing of one cylinder can oppose the direction of the starter.

 

Old two stroke motorcycles could sometimes actually run backwards when running slowly they could bounce on compression then run in reverse. A friend of mine once at traffic lights let his clutch in and bashed into the car waiting behind.

 

Come to think of it early Bollinders did not have a gearbox, they had a weired arrangement were you let the revs' drop to almost nothing, change the injection and valve timing. It bounced back-wards and hopefully re-started. If you were lucky.

[Breals]

If they are reluctant to do it don't ask them, servicing a diesel engine is a very simple matter, get someone to show you first time then you can do yourself.

 

No, they seem up for it. Although they are clearly more used to working in their nice warm garage. They've got moorings with narrowboats alongside their premises so it could be a good side line for them!

[John Orentas]

No, they seem up for it. Although they are clearly more used to working in their nice warm garage. They've got moorings with narrowboats alongside their premises so it could be a good side line for them!

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Just the same keep a close watch on what the chap is doing, then you will know what to do next time.

[Big COL]

John

 

Reversing 2 stroke engines, I didn't realise just how common this still is. This is the principal used to obtain reverse on 2stroke petrol engine driven golf buggies. They have a switch for forward and reverse, this switch reverses the polarity to the starter, so in one position the starter will start the engine clockwise, and in the other position it starts the engine anti-clockwise.

I had been using these for years without giving it a thought as too how a switch could obtain reverse, then it suddenly struck me. Believe me I wasn't too popular. a golf buggy with its seat up and me with my head in the engine, all in the middle of a golf course, holding up play on the rest of the course behind me, I had a few problems explaining that one. Still, never mind, it provided an answer for my instant need to know.

[John Orentas]

Those horrible light green invalid cars had just the same system, originally a 200cc Villiers bike engine.

[Big COL]

Those horrible light green invalid cars had just the same system, originally a 200cc Villiers bike engine.

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John

 

Do you know how the starters worked on these? today it is easy with a pre-engage starter you can have square cut gears which will engage for either direction. In the days of these invalid cars, starters had the starter dog which was thrown forward by the starter and rejected when the engine started. From memory the starter dogs had angled gears which would only engage in one direction. Do you know what was the set up for them to start in the opposite direction? See you have started my need to know now I assume if they were straight cut gears there would be the chance of them jamming. Where they straight cut with a chamfer on each edge?.

[John Orentas]

Hi Colin.

 

You are thinking about a Bendix drive, all cars were fitted with these up to the mid 70's. They worked on a system not dissimilar from what we have now, except that that the small gear on the starter motor was thrown into mesh with the flywheel by an ingenious contraption. The gear was fitted loosely onto a 'quick' thread, on the shaft of the motor, when the motor starts the gear moves along the thread because of it's reluctance to rotate with the shaft and moves into mesh (much easier to understand when you have one in your hand impossible to explain in writing)

 

Invalid carriages, bubble cars and other such vehicles with Villiers and other engines used a clever device that didn't use any gearing at all. The outside flywheel itself acted as the starter armature with big magnets built into it, heavy starter coils where fitted on a stator inside, for starting the polarity could be reversed through the coils to start the engine in either direction, If I remember there were also two sets of contact breaker points.

 

The system also had coils for generating power for the 6 volt system battery charging and of course it also incorporated HT coils for the magneto ignition. It was tried on motor cycles and scooters but the whole thing was heavy and cumbersome.

[Big COL]

John

 

I see, now you have explained. I also remember that on a Berkley 3 wheeled sports that I owned ( for a very short time) there was a Dynostart combined starter and dynamo. The only good thing in that was the engine, an excelsior talisman twin, you will remember them.

[John Orentas]

John

 

  I see, now you have explained. I also remember that on a Berkley 3 wheeled sports that I owned ( for a very short time) there was a Dynostart combined starter and dynamo. The only good thing in that was the engine, an excelsior talisman twin, you will remember them.

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Dynostart. That is the word I was trying to remember, I think they were made by a company called Ciba. I remember the Berkley, when Excelsior went out of business they used a Royal Enfield Constellation engine, 700cc it would do well over 100 mph. a bit too quick for all the other components.

 

I can't remember what sort of starter the Enfield had, certainly the bikes didn't have electric starters in those days.

 

A chap in our road had a Bond Mini, quite an early one with a 125 Villiers, which was mounted and moved with the front wheel which it drove by a chain. To start it he had to open the bonnet and use the kick starter. Those were the days.

[Yamanx]

A chap in our road had a Bond Mini, quite an early one with a 125 Villiers, which was mounted and moved with the front wheel which it drove by a chain.  To start it he had to open the bonnet and use the kick starter.  Those were the days.

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I took the engine out of a Bond three wheeler and fitted it into a Francis Barnet scrambler (Moto Cross bike for the younger members). It was a 250cc single two stoke Villiers single exhaust (There was a dual exhaust version). Got a photo somewhere. Failed scruiteering once at Coombe Valley Dover for still having all the car engine mounts fitted!

 

That ran backwards on ocassion. First time it ever happened I was bump starting it down a fairly steep hill (Ham hill for those who might know it) and it just fired on the clutch. I slung my leg over, gave it a good handful of throttle and let out the clutch, I flew over the handle bars and broke my wrist! Just a lad at the time, went onto race a Maico and various other non-British motorcycles, still had a few mind.

 

Sorry about being off topic but the conversation developed eh?

[Big COL]

Yamanx

 

 

We are off topic, but it's good to talk about the old bikes. I will start a thread in the pub

Edited October 7, 2005 by Big COL