Starter motor questions

[billw]

Starters are confusing. They should name them the same rotation as the engine they go on, but I don’t believe that is the case. All 3.0 liter Marine GM ENGINES are left had rotation. Marine nomenclature views the engine from the stern looking forward. To be sure you have the right starter, look at the teeth. You will see the end of the gear teeth have tapered edges. If your new starter has the same taper as the old one, then the rotation is correct. If the taper is on the opposite side of the teeth, then you have the wrong rotation starter.

Long live American manufacturing!

[outbdnut2]

I used to have a mid 1970s 3 liter. The 3 liter is the basic 4 cyl Chevrolet engine that was the base engine in the first Chevy II’s (later called Novas), but gas was cheap then so nobody bought the 4 in the Nova. That base engine, bought from GM and built up by Mercury for marine use, has been a very reliable, long life marine engine for many years. The ones I’ve seen are 120, 130 , and 140 HP models. Mine was 140 HP. Bought the boat used in 1984 and ran the hell out of it every summer at dad’s lake cabin until 1999.
Dave

[dave-bernard]

another thing if it mounts from the front or rear. make a difference.

[billw]

By the way, as for lubrication, I have always put a VERY THIN amount of light weight grease on the shaft. Usually I am replacing a starter that was a big ball of rust; so I tend towards putting SOMETHING on the shaft, even though nothing is really specified. I’ve been doing it for a lot of years an there haven’t been any problems from it, that I know of.

As you might guess, the trick to keeping the starter working is to check the operation of your automatic bilge pump, all the time. If you don’t have one, install one. And don’t launch the boat with the plug out. Ha ha, I know, but it happens. All it takes is for water to get as high as the lower teeth of the flywheel one time, and then the count down to starter failure starts. I know that Mercruisers have a supposedly sealed flywheel housing but this is sketchy.

Long live American manufacturing!

[hag]

Agreed billw , have auto bilge , also yes I think light oil good idea. Maybe light coat of lubriplate/corn grease.

Thank you

[Mumbles]

Out of curiosity, since I do have the shop manuals for the Mercruiser four cylinder GM engines put away somewhere, I’m going to dig them out sometime and see if any of those motors used reverse rotation. I’ve seen other engines with it done and they use different cams, oil pump drive gears, and of course, starters.

[Author]

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