Thanks for your info. I had trouble finding the third nut to remove the
starter. Eventually found it, purchased an extension for the socket set
and removed it fine. The cause was some rust on the starter shaft - it was
not allowing the drive sprocket to move forward to engage with the
flywheel - I cleaned it up and all is fine.

My concern now is why did it rust? I will remove again and see if there is
any free water in the bell housing but my limited initial inspection
revealed nothing.


"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
link.net...

"John Smith" writes:

I tried to start it today to find the starter motor spinning freely,
with
no
engine cranking.

1) Remove cranking motor (starter) from engine and secure on a bench.
(I've
used a vice sometimes)

2) Attach leads to cranking motor and the negative to the battery (May
have
to remove battery from boat if you don't have a spare handy).

3) Touch the positive lead to the positive on the battery and observe the
business end of the cranking motor.

You should see the pinion (small) gear on the cranking motor come forward
as
if it were trying to engage bull gear on the engine.

If it doesn't, you have a defective Bendix drive (part of the cranking
motor
ass'y)

If it does, you may have damaged teeth on the pinion gear.

Worst case scenario:

Everything is fine with the cranking motor and you have chipped or missing
teeth on the bull gear of the engine.

Not likely, but it does happen.

Good luck.

HTH


--
Lew

S/A: Challenge, The Bullet Proof Boat, (Under Construction in the
Southland)
Visit: http://home.earthlink.net/~lewhodgett for Pictures