Help! 86 Supra Sunsport - starter won't disengage

[Graeme]

86 Sunsport with a PCM 351W. Boat has been working well this season up until today. Started it up and the starter wouldn't disengage. Key shuts everything off, but on the restart, it still stays engaged as long as the motor is running. I tried a quick throttle up and back to idle and shutoff (definitely the starter judging by the smoke from that location....eesh, new starter now I suppose). Starts back up and same issue. Any ideas? I just put a new starter and relay in last summer.

[wiatowski]

Solenoid is the only thing that would keep the starter going. Costs you like $15 at Napa.

[awesomesteven]

+1 on the solenoid. Make sure you check all your wires/connections as well as they can cause a lot of problems if loose.

- you probably didn't do this but just thought I would mention it. 2 summers ago I had a friend 'hot wire' his boat several times becuase he forgot the boat keys. Pretty simple to do. 3 wires Red, yellow(with red strip) and purple. One time he mixed up the purple and yellow wire and the starter would stay engaged after it started. Easy problem to fix and a great laugh for me at the time.

[chris young]

Exactly what I was thinking, it could also be the ignition switch. Easy way to check is to turn the key to 'on' and then engage the solenoid by putting 12V on the terminal that normally comes from the ignition switch and see if it disengages when you lift the 12V.

It's also possible that the bendix has stuck and the starter is engaged all the time. I'm not sure there's any way to test that without pulling the starter, but that's not a big job on these boats.

[Graeme]

I took the starter out today. The bendix was just free floating (it would just fall from engaged to disengaged when you flipped the starter end to end) so I took it to a local repair shop here. Should know more this afternoon.

Nope I didn't try to hotwire it. I changed nothing, it went from working fine to staying engaged. I'm assuming with the bendix just free floating, it just happened to get stuck in the engaged position and the friction on the ring gear just kept it in place.

Thanks for the help guys!

[lively]

I would stay engaged too if she stayed as wet as my bilge lol !!!