mid 70s Evinrude 85 starts easily in driveway, bear on the lake

[heckhole]

Your bendix is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, there's no reason for the gear to rise up the shaft if it's spinning at the same speed as the shaft, in fact the spring will keep it pushed down.

Sounds like your getting an initial half hearted pop but then the motor is not continuing to run.

Has it ever worked for you trouble free in the water?
Is this something new that has started happening?
Sounds like flooding combined with the extra back pressure to me.

You are right. I get a very weak chug, for a tenth of a second and then the starter gear continues to spin as it disconnects from the motor. If it would just stay connected for another second it would fire. The motor tries to fire immediately at all times. Aside from this issue it is the fastest starting outboard I've ever had.

 

[heckhole]

I checked my batteries and realized I only had 625 cca marine batteries. I wired them parallel and bam, no issues starting, the starter stayed engaged for that extra crank the motor needed. Literally takes 2 seconds for this thing to start. A fast storm rolled in over the mountain and the lightning was bad, we were able to start right up and get to safety fast with that 85hp on a 15ft fiberglass boat. It tops out at 38mph on GPS. We were able to hide in the truck until it was safe to load up and go home.

 

[oldboat1]

quite an adventure! best guess is that it's not the cranking amps, but just a weak starting battery -- parallel wiring was like jump starting.

[edit: but can't rule out a weak starter yet. Should be able to pull off the starter and get it checked for no cost. Memories of an old Chrysler 55 I had.]

 

[heckhole]

I won't rule anything out yet. I do believe that battery was getting weak because this wasn't always an issue, it happened once in a while for 2 years, generally after the boat sat for a good amount of time between fishing trips.

 

[heckhole]

We can consider this solved. 3 trips in with parallel cranking batteries and there are no issues starting anymore. Onto the next problem...