This regards an '85 O'day 28 with Universal Diesel. After winter storage, pushed starter button and it worked fine, but instead of feeling decent resistance, the button feels a bit spongy and depresses about twice as far as in the past. Is this a warning to change it out and if so, how is this done, from rear or front etc.? Assuming I can buy the switch itself, of course.
Starter button going south?
- Thread starter odaydokay
- Start date
Piece of cake to replace. Pull the panel, pull the wires off the start button, unscrew the nut on the back side of the panel holding the switch, install the new switch by reversing the instructions. test it BEFORE you put the panel back.
You say pull the panel. Remove the screws from the panel front or work from the back and remove the service cover that seems to be held on by only the retention nut for the fuel cutoff cable running through the middle of it?
Try removing the back panel cover by removing the nut as you describe and accessing the switch from the back. You should be able to slide that back panel down the fuel cutoff cable far enough to allow access to the switch You shouldn't have to pull the panel.
Thank you very much Richard! I had a 6th sense that going in from the front would not access the switch as one is still stuck with the back cover in place. Much obliged!
This turned out to be pretty simple. Yes, work from the back, loosening the clamp that holds the clam-shell-like cover to the throttle stop cable. Then remove the 6 screws on the clam-shell itself and slid it downward so you can get at the backs of the switches. Now go around the front and remove the rubber switch cover, retained by a large hex nut. You can now push the switch inward so you can remove the back of it from the panel. What I found was revealing and perhaps a warning. The reason the switch had such a long throw and spongy feel was that the back of it, either pressed or glued at the factory, had simply separated from the front housing and was being held on only by the pressure of the two cables being connected! When I removed the two wires, I had two sub assemblies, a spring and a couple of metal contact wafers in my hands! How long could I have gone with things in that state? Who knows, but I know it would have quit exactly when I did not want it to right? Moral is to be sensitive to subtle changes as your boat will in fact communicate things to you.....
....and now I guess I ought to replace the glow plug switch as well since having one without the other won't start the engine very well.