Starter Redux (pt2 Starter Saga)

I'm feeling both mildly proud and highly self-critical.

The self -criticism is that I fuckin knew better: I should've pulled the starter when we arrived to Mikindani and torn it down to do a partial rebuild.

Instead,
We fired it up a few times, it worked great, and we said "ok. Good enough"

It wasn't good enough.

When we got the dreaded "click" as we were ready to depart - dinghy on deck, outboard on the transom, hatches battened, everything stowed.... I felt intense self recrimination.

Sigh. C'mon, Steve.

So I spent 20 minutes pulling the starter (yep, it was that easy) and tore into it to discover it was full of decomposed brushes.

--- electric motors (starters) often have graphite blocks through which power is delivered and those blocks are called "brushes". Brushes wear out and leave messy graphite all over the internals which can cause poor function and/or various problems) ---

The starter was overdue for relatively simple maintenance. It didn't take very long to realize that I needed to make a trip to town to seek parts. I'm chagrined to admit that it was really pretty easy (maybe 2 hours, including ATM) to find an almost perfect match and about $20.

Anyhow
I reassembled the starter and all seems to be working well enough (f'real this time) - the starter still needs a rebuild but it starts!

So we hustled and headed out the channel, bidding Mikindani a grateful farewell. It's been a very nice place to rest.Read more