I have a 2001 Mercury 90 2 Stroke. When I turn the key nothing happens. All I hear is a single click(solenoid). My battery went out on me last weekend and I recharged it over the past two days. I put brand new spark plugs in the other day also. I just cleaned the ends of the cables. One cable has a little green on it but it isn’t bad.
Any idea what this could be? I figure it has to be the solenoid, starter, or ignition. Anything else this could be? It started last weekend doing this the same day that the battery died. At first it would only crank every couple turns. Then about every 5 tuns. Now it will not fire at all.
Any way to troubleshoot to find out which one it is. I am not very electronically inclined. Is this something I can do myself or should I call someone.
Start by load testing the battery. Test on the posts that the cables are connected to. I recently fought the same bug and load tested on the lead posts and the batt checked OK. When I went back and tested on the threaded studs that the cables were connected to it failed. It was a Deka battery which has seperate posts instead of the molded lead post / stud configuration.
Good suggestion - I will check that out. I pulled the battery out and charged it for the past two days so I know it is holding a charge. The posts isn’t something that I have thought about. Also, any way to check that the cables are good? I hate to start cutting and replacing the ends to perfectly good cables but I guess I can if that is the only way. One cable has some green on it but I cleaned the majority of it off yesterday. I know it cut have green up the wire also.
Actually, just remembered that I hooked up my back-up battery yesterday and the same thing happened. This would pretty much eliminate the bad post I would imagine. I guess I will cut the cables next and pull back to see the condition. Any suggestions on how to test w/o cutting?
You must load test the battery. A bad battery can appear to take a charge and put out 12+volts with very little amperage actually available. In that situation, a volt meter shows good, but, it would never turn your starter.
Load test battery.
Disconnect batter cables (should be already) and clean them to shiny.
Clean battery posts/bolts to shiny.
Reconnect and try it.
If that doesn’t work, check your starter solenoid.
Turn the ignition to ‘on’.
Carefully use a pair of jumper cables to bridge across your starter solenoid very briefly. Wear eye protection. You may get some sparks.
The bendix should jump and spin the flywheel. If the bendix does not jump quick and strong, you have a bad solenoid.
Possible power issue, hook a good known battery to it and re test. seems like you have a bad solenoid; The contact plate rotates as it is energized and some spots have arched enough where they are to dirty to make good contact.so when you keep trying to turn it over it will find a good contact and transfer the source (12v+) when this starts happening it will not be long for a complete failure.
I just hooked up a battery that I purchased back in December and it did the same thing. Net net is same result with two different batteries. Before doing this I cleaned up the battery cables and screws on battery with a wire brush and baking soda/water. They are pretty clean now.
If my cables were bad would I still get a reading on my console? It is reading 12 volts and everything else battery operated on the boat is working fine. Not sure if this eliminates the cables or not. I only have one battery so I would think if I had a bad cable other things on the boat would not be working. Also, I would think that I would not get a full 12 volt reading on my voltmeter on the console.
Sounding more like a solenoid to me. I might go ahead and order one and replace this. A solenoid is only about $25. Any other suggestions?
I know I can call someone and ultimately I might have to, but this time of year it will take weeks to get to my boat as everyone knows. Normally in my experience battery issues are not difficult to fix - but can be difficult to find.
It is possible other components will still work, they do not pull as much of a load as cranking your engine. Typically if your trim tilt operates fine your outboard should be able to turn over fine.
take a pair of jumper cables, and go from the battery to the boat side of the solenoid, and try again.
if nothing happens, “bump” the positive cable to the starter side of the solenoid.
if the solenoid is bad, the starter will spin, because you are bypassing the the solenoid, and sending power directly to the starter
NOTE: THIS WILL CAUSE A LARGE SPARK, AND CAN BE DANGEROUS, SO USE EXTREME CAUTION
Is it bad to start the engine with the rope mechanism? I know this is for emergency starts but in the event I need to pull it out (and it looks like I am going to have to), curious if this is bad for the engine?