Adventures on Beannacht

Tuesday 29th September

Boat projects are resuming with a vengeance in Luperon, and they need to. On Sunday we tackled the first of our larger items that we’d saved for a day free of interruptions, our starter motor. Our starter had been a little delinquent in Puerto Rico, but it was never a complete failure, just took a couple of times to fire up. In the Virgins however it descended and by the time we were coming West again we were starting the engine with two screwdrivers, crossing the terminals manually. It wasn’t damaging anything, but there was sparks and drama every time. Having consulted the oracle (read Nigel Caulder) we suspected that the contacts in the solenoid were worn, and so under the supervision of Olivier on P’tit Louis I pulled it out and gave it a refurb, complete with pictures below.

Firstly you remove the starter from the engine. In the Perkins it’s held on with three 17mm bolts, isolating the batteries and removing the electrical connections from the solenoid first. Once those are out of the way and the bolts removed it just slides right out, down into the bilge to get past the oil filter and then you can pull it vertically out of the engine room. The access to our engine room is pretty challenging, so I’d advise an hour of yoga before you start to get you prepped. Also in D.R. right now it’s above 35 degrees in the middle of the day so bathing in talc might assist with the sweating. When I was putting the starter back in I found myself completing electrical circuits on the engine block because I was so sweaty. A little tingle on the back of the hand keeps you fresh.

Once removed from the engine disassembling the starter is very simple. First remove the solenoid by disconnecting it from the starter at the copper strap that supplies the current and the pivot bolt that the solenoid acts on. It just pops off.

As soon as we opened the solenoid it was obvious what the problem was – which it great! The copper contacts for both the solenoid and the starter were knackered, hence the ‘sticking’ was actually the electrical contact not managing to supply the necessary current to either component. Olivier whipped out his static grinder, on the compulsory tools list for many a boat (but not ours), and we polished the contacts back to bright and shiny. The main power stud was designed to be reversible, so we spun that 180 degrees and it was literally good as new.

Solenoid repaired we then opened up the starter. It looked in great condition, but we pulled a trick right out of Nigel Caulder to give it a freshen up. You take a hacksaw blade and grind both sides of it to make it straight, rather than the original staggered blade. We then cut back the insulating compound between the copper contact points for the bushes to make sure they were fully insulated from each other. After that we wet sanded the copper, and again it’s gleaming and smooth.

Finally we greased the gearing for the starter and put it all back together. A 2hr project that’s brought the starter back to excellent working condition. And it’s dead easy, made even better by the amazing support from Oliver and a boat full of power tools!

Normal blogging will resume this week, and I’ll try to maintain the balance between the technical and the cultural!