Home › Forum › Ask A Member › ’93 15hp electric start issue
- This topic has 14 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 10 months ago by
frankr.
-
AuthorPosts
-
June 28, 2016 at 8:54 pm #4613
A little stumped here, and I’m guessing I am overlooking something obvious, so here it goes.
I have used a multimeter to test voltage for all leads from battery to motor and motor to switch. This isn’t a very complicated start circuit particularly since there is no solenoid on these little motors.
I have a solid 12 volts coming out of the start button to the starter, but when hooked to the actual positive pole on the starter, I get less than 1 volt, which obviously means not enough juice for the starter. Again – direct connection from the starter button lead (which attaches to the starter positive pole) and I get 12V when pressing the start button.
Connect it to the starter and the power is dead essentially. What the heck am I missing here? I have a star washer digging into the positive lead and the nut that holds it onto the starter pole.
I’ve made a direct connection from the battery positive lead to the starter pole and the starter worked fine.
Burned out start button?
June 28, 2016 at 9:29 pm #39159It sounds to me like a dragging starter. How about an amp test to see how much it’s drawing? I use an inductive amp meter that you hold over the positive cable, then crank the starter. Does the starter get hot if you hold the starter button in? You could get a pair of jumper cables and go from the battery directly to the starter… How about the ground cable on the motor? Another idea.. where the copper battery cable enters the connection lug, I’ve seen them corrode and drive you crazy trying to figure it out.
June 28, 2016 at 9:31 pm #39161Ok, I read the last line of your post, I see the starter works fine when directly hooked up. Can you connect the wires directly at the switch? i haven’t worked on one of those for a long time, so I can’t remember. Sounds like the starter button is shot.
June 28, 2016 at 9:39 pm #39163I’m going to switch…well…the switch out (what’s your vector victor?) and report back. These ‘newer’ 15’s have plastic buttons that don’t look like much fun to swap out…tiller is off the middle front of motor with everything routed through a bunch of plastic sleeves/covers…etc.
The newer it gets, the more CPS to deal with (Cheap Plastic…you know what!).
June 28, 2016 at 10:05 pm #39164OK, so essentially you have a cable between the start button and the starter, with nothing in the middle of the cable, right? And you have 12V at the button and 0V at the starter. But the starter works if jumped. Simple. That cable is broken somewhere, or not making contact at the ends. –OR–it does have something in the middle of the cable. Like a neutral start safety switch (???) I say all this without knowing if it has a switch or not. I guess I could look it up.
June 28, 2016 at 11:02 pm #39171I am getting 12V at the feed coming OFF the button at the ring connector (so the end of the wire coming off the button) which goes onto the starter when disconnected from the starter, but as soon as that is attached to the starter, I’m getting only a trace voltage (say 1-3V max). That’s why I’m stumped — with the lead FROM the button OFF the starter pole, I get the full 12.4 volts.
These motors don’t use a solenoid for the start button to starter. It’s an in-series configuration. The ‘newer’ models don’t have a neutral start safety switch, rather, the ‘start’ button is located on the shifter (front of motor) and has to be in neutral when depressed to actually push down the real start button located under it.
I guess this was a way to cut some costs by using a mechanical ‘link up’ being in neutral to press a start button, rather than having the older configuration with a simple circuit breaking button with extra wires.
It’s a low voltage situation because the starter barely turns when everything is hooked up…but when jumped works completely fine. Is it possible for the button to be burned out and showing a false positive as they say. I mention this because I have had solenoids that test OK, but when a draw from a starter is put on them they can’t run the juice through them to make the starter work.
June 28, 2016 at 11:33 pm #39176To follow up – just swapped out the original switch and it fixed the problem. So while the multimeter was showing 12V at the end of the switch lead, the original switch must have been corroded/broken down/burnt out because it could not allow enough amps through the connection for the starter to get what it needed.
So even though the switch tested fine, that doesn’t mean it was OK.
June 29, 2016 at 1:18 am #39187FYI: If anyone else out there needs to replace one of these starter switches on a 9.9 or 15 OMC, I’ve used a NAPA general replacement switch with a 60 AMP rating that worked great and comes with a waterproof cap that was around five bucks – link to it below:
Davehttps://www.napaonline.com/napa/en/p/GR … /GRO822151
June 29, 2016 at 1:26 am #39188Those are helpful for the older, pre 1992 models, but won’t work for the post ’92 models because the start button is part of the tiller assembly. The book price for a replacement switch is about $113.00! 😯 😮 🙁
Thank goodness for parts motors……
June 29, 2016 at 11:26 am #39217quote johnyrude200:To follow up – just swapped out the original switch and it fixed the problem. So while the multimeter was showing 12V at the end of the switch lead, the original switch must have been corroded/broken down/burnt out because it could not allow enough amps through the connection for the starter to get what it needed.So even though the switch tested fine, that doesn’t mean it was OK.
Yep, what you did was what’s known as a voltage drop test. You were testing the voltage drop across the circuit between the battery and switch output terminal. The fact that there was such a drastic voltage drop when you activated the switch while connected to the starter motor indicates there was a high resistance in that circuit, in this case the switch.
Voltage drop tests are a very useful diagnostic procedures. Too bad so few people understand them.
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
