Portside Engine Won’t Start

[mrodz123]

Hi Everyone,
This forum has been extremely helpful! So it’s been about 9 months since I’ve started up my boat. I was getting ready to start doing my annual maintenance of spark plugs, oil change, etc when I realized that my portside engine is not starting. I started by tenderizing my battery to full health. Starboard engine fired up normally, but the portside engine makes an awful vibrating sound and I noticed it is also like jumping when I try to start it. I didn’t want to cause any further damage so I stopped right away. I’ll go ahead and change the spark plugs, oil filter, and oil as I had planned, but in the meantime I was wondering if there is anything else I should worry about or look into here. I’ve already read through the “engine won’t start” checklist, which made me think that maybe once I change the spark plugs it will be okay. I did also grease the intermediate bearing last year, but to be honest that is the only grease point I am aware of so maybe there is something else that needs to be greased. I just hope it’s something simple and I haven’t just lost an engine :/

Thanks again for all your great help here. I can post a video of the engine trying to start up if it helps, I’m just scared to do anything before hearing from the experts here

The boat has been sitting in the yard with the cover on for the last 9 months. It hasn’t touched the sea in over a year.

I should add that based on the last issue I posted about here which you helped me solve, and a little bit of further reading, it might be possible that I have some biofulging inside my cylinders, since my t-stat housing were gross. I saw one user here say that fixing that is not easy, so I’m really hoping this isn’t the problem. After I fixed my t-stats, I did flush both engines for a while with salt away, then again with fresh water. I think I was sure to wait until all the water was out of the cooling system before shutting off and covering her up, but it’s worth adding this information to this post since it may be relevant as for something I need to check.

 

[Beachbummer]

Awful noise and hard to turn, maybe your pump liner has swollen. You can remove the pump and try to restart to confirm and potentially have some options to address once you confirm it. Search for pump liner swell for a multitude of posts on the topic.

 

[mrodz123]

Thanks! I’ll search now and check

 

[Dthorpe]

First, you're not supposed to change the oil unless the engine has run to get it warm. Also, did you check the clean-out plugs to make sure the impeller is not jammed with some debris that may have hardened over the last nine months?

 

[mrodz123]

First, you're not supposed to change the oil unless the engine has run to get it warm. Also, did you check the clean-out plugs to make sure the impeller is not jammed with some debris that may have hardened over the last nine months?

That’s how I figured out it doesn’t start — I was about to do the maintenance so I was starting the engines to get it warm, but not hot.

I did check the clean out, and the impeller, and it’s all clear. Also, it was starting fine prior to this, and I haven’t had any outings since then.

 

[Doncore3000]

Your description sounds exactly like mine when I had the swollen impeller housing issue. However, mine did start and continued to make that awful sound. I would treat them as separate issues, first find out if your impeller is striking the housing and then figure out if you have dirty plugs, etc...