Something has changed on charging

I dont know what has happened on my charging system, I have shore power to the boat, after mayby 3 days ,tried to start the 120 ford and would not spin it enough to start. Gen starts immediatlly. After runninig the Gen for an hour the 120 starts right up. What am I missing here? I have not changed anything and th Ford has always started on th first spin. BB


-- Edited by belizebill on Sunday 16th of October 2011 08:00:40 AM

How old is ur charger? Maybe time for a new one. Check and clean all ur battery cable connections. Is the starting battery actually at a low charge state ? When this happens, check it with a hydrometer before you try to charge it. Sometimes these can be real time consuming to track down, but start at one end and work to the other. Dont forget to check the starting solenoid too.

Good luck
Larry B

Old/bad battery?

Sufficient battery water? What's the start battery voltage at rest? How old is the battery? Can you tie the house and start banks together and get a start? Do you have a battery monitor? If so, readings at rest and during charge? Need more info...

Too many unknowns to even offer a guess. First step is to verify that the charger is actually charging. Next is to check each cell of each battery with a hydrometer and look for a weak or dead cell. Check all connections on the batteries and starter. Once those three steps are done you can move on to other troubleshooting. Chuck

What I would suggest after checking connections is to have the battery(s) load tested. It may be that the battery(s) have enough power to start the generator but for whatever reason--- bad cell, etc--- doesn't't have enough to start the main engine. A load test will tell you what each battery is capable of and will reveal if it's getting tired or has some other issue.


-- Edited by Marin on Monday 17th of October 2011 10:46:26 AM

Im going thru everything, will let you know what I find.BB

Ive gone thru everything I can think of. Still the same result. However ,I plugged my home battery charger into the 110v socket in the er, connected to the selinoid and bam cranks right up. Bad selinoid? BB, how do you spell that part

belizebill wrote:


Ive gone thru everything I can think of. Still the same result. However ,I plugged my home battery charger into the 110v socket in the er, connected to the selinoid and bam cranks right up. Bad selinoid? BB, how do you spell that part

Click to expand...

:smile:Solenoid.I think it's possible you have a volage drop in your positive cable. Do you have a volt meter?

If you know your batteries are good and the charger is working... It's that starter. That is the exact same route I took when my Perkins struggled to start. Went thru several mechanics that bled the fuel system and pointed at all sorts of things until it failed me in Morehead City and the mechanic for Terry Labonte's sportfish came onboard and figured it out. I had lost one of the three sets of brushes on the starter. It would turn two-thirds of a turn and hang.Sometimes it could get past it, but finally the heat that built up during the hang process burned up the bendix and brush contact surfaces.

I'll bet you have the exact same problem.