Proud new owner of A 1976 Parson 30!!

[tfish]

Hello Afourians!! I recently purchased a Pearson 30 with an Atomic 4. We motored and sailed her from Norfolk Va to Hampton Va two weeks ago. The engine purred like a kitten...... However several days later when I brought my local Atomic 4 Hero over to take a look at her(Thanks Roy!) we discovered the flywheel is seeming to not engage with the starter!! If you manually crank the flywheel however she will again Purr like a kitten. Has anyone ran in to this before?? As a funny aside my wife and her girlfriend are joking about naming th boat "Tink,Tink" for the sound it makes when we try to start it without manually turning the fly wheel!! Thanks I look forward to learning a lot from you all!!!

[sastanley]

tfish,

Welcome. The girls always tease...let them go sailing on a diesel powered boat and report back!

Starter...NO PROBLEM. you probably need to drop a few $$ into letting a shop rebuild the starter..likely the solenoid is shot and won't spit out the starter gear into the flywheel...or you could always buy one from Moyer.

About 75 miles north of you, people like me go to the Mennonites here in Southern Maryland..they know electric stuff.

[smosher]

The other possibilty is either the battery doesn't have enough power to turn the starter, or there's too much resistance in the battery cables. Check the voltage at the battery should be 13 volts or higher with the motor running.

I also have a P30 and replaced all of the battery cables which were badly corroded. There's one cable attached to the port side of the engine thats difficult to get to and hard to see.

Steve

[edwardc]

Congratulations on your purchase, and welcome to the forum! You'll find an incredible wealth of knowledge here. Lots of friendly, helpful people who've done it all.

I'll send you a private message about the Pearson Sailing Association of the Chesapeake Bay, another group you may want to connect with.

[Kurt]

As Shawn said - your starter solenoid is likely shot. Same thing has happened to every old car I have owned at some point. An automotive parts store should be able to test your starter to ensure this is the issue. I wouldn't waste time checking a bunch of other stuff until you rule this likely cause out. The starter is very easy to remove - two bolts and a couple of electrical connections to the starter and solenoid and you are done.

[Roy]

starting problem

After looking at your engine with you, it was found that the solinoid pinion gear would properly go up to the flywheel rim gear but wouldn't engage. It would bang into the flyeheel as is the gears wouldn't mesh. By turning the flywheel to another position the gears would engage proprly and the engine would turn over and start. Sometimes we had to repeat this proceedure several times.

[thatch]

"Some simple tests"

Tfish,
Welcome aboard "The good ship Lollypop". Before disassembling anything there are a couple of tests that will help to establish if you have a battery, cable or a starter problem. The first test would be to check at the battery posts (not the cables) for 12+ volts while trying to start the engine. If the voltage stays about the same, then the battery is probably good. The second test should be between the negative battery terminal post (again not the cable) and the high current terminal (the large copper one on the solenoid), which should read the same as the battery voltage. Then, while trying to start your A4, if the battery voltage stays at or near 12 volts, you most likely have a solenoid or starter motor problem. If, on the other hand the voltage drops to almost zero, then you probably have either a bad battery cable connection or a bad cable.
Tom

[Will Jacocks]

After looking at your engine with you, it was found that the solinoid pinion gear would properly go up to the flywheel rim gear but wouldn't engage. It would bang into the flyeheel as is the gears wouldn't mesh. By turning the flywheel to another position the gears would engage proprly and the engine would turn over and start. Sometimes we had to repeat this proceedure several times.

Better get that flywheel looked at, likely the teeth are missing and the starter can't engage properly.

[ArtJ]

It might be worth a check. I have read on the forum that late and early
model engines have different no of flywheel teeth / dimensions. Maybe
the starter could be for the other version?

[Will Jacocks]

If that was the case, (and it very well may be) it would ding ding ding all the time when trying to start it. They say that they have to spin the flywheel a bit then it would engage, smacks to me of missing teeth. Which could be damage from being the wrong tooth pattern...

[edwardc]

There's another possibility.

Normally, the sides of the teeth on the pinion gear that engage the flywheel are beveled to allow them to twist into proper alignment when the solenoid thrusts the pinion gear onto the flywheel. (The picture below is just representative, not from an A4 starter)

If these bevels were munged up, say from engaging the starter while the engine is running, it might prevent the pinion from engaging smoothly with the flywheel unless it were lined up just right.

Combine that with a weak solenoid and/or corroded connections and you would see the symptoms you are describing.

[Mo]

Hi guys....

Turn the flywheel a bit at a time, could use a hand crank. Look for "worn" or rounded teeth on the ring gear. Not necessarily broken or missing teeth.

Look at the starter gear also. ...that one should be beveled at the tips a little so that it can hit a ring gear and slide / deflect into the teeth slots.

The problem could be either or a little bit of both.

[Mo]

Sorry Edward....we were on the same idea and typing the same time...another guy that types and edits much faster than I.

[edwardc]

Sorry Edward....we were on the same idea and typing the same time...another guy that types and edits much faster than I.

No sweat Mo. We seem to be on the same ideas a lot lately.

After I typed that last one, yet another possibility occurred to me, this one even more likely.

Maybe the teeth are fine, but the pinion's overrunning clutch is seized. It's the overrunning clutch that allows the pinion to rotate into alignment when the solenoid engages. It would produce the same effect. The pinion couldn't engage unless it was lined up exactly with the flywheel ring gear.

[ILikeRust]

Hello Afourians!! I recently purchased a Pearson 30 with an Atomic 4. We motored and sailed her from Norfolk Va to Hampton Va two weeks ago.

Since everyone else seems to pretty much have covered all the suggestions I would have had, I'll just say hey, I'm just a bit north of you. I keep my 1968 Pearson Wanderer just inside of Gwynns Island, off of the Piankatank River, in Queens Creek.

Maybe we'll see each other out in the Bay someday.