Lubricating starter?

[01star]

Hi guys I have a 2001 prostar 209 that i'll be winterizing this weekend. I was reviewing the owners manual and i noticed it mentioned lubricating the starter with WD-40. I'm not sure if I have ever done that before. Is it a difficult thing to do? Is it completely necessary? Do I have to remove the starter to achieve this? TIA.

[waterlogged882]

Hi guys I have a 2001 prostar 209 that i'll be winterizing this weekend. I was reviewing the owners manual and i noticed it mentioned lubricating the starter with WD-40. I'm not sure if I have ever done that before. Is it a difficult thing to do? Is it completely necessary? Do I have to remove the starter to achieve this? TIA.

Not hard, not a bad idea, and not a lot of people do it. Remove the starter and put grease in the bendix area and on the gear. Not a lot but enough to justify taking the starter off and back on. Generally speaking, you'll loosen a few bolts back near the flywheel. Take a photo of your cable connections before you disconnect anything. The starter will slide away from the flywheel easy...same going back on. Not complicated, especially on a direct drive (room to work).

WD-40 = water displacement 40, not so much of a lubricant. Your call there. I'd use grease.

.

[mikeg205]

Really important if you get lots of water in bilge. If yours runs dry, not really needed. I do mine every 4-5 years.. run a very dry bilge in my 95

[01star]

Not hard, not a bad idea, and not a lot of people do it. Remove the starter and put grease in the bendix area and on the gear. Not a lot but enough to justify taking the starter off and back on. Generally speaking, you'll loosen a few bolts back near the flywheel. Take a photo of your cable connections before you disconnect anything. The starter will slide away from the flywheel easy...same going back on. Not complicated, especially on a direct drive (room to work).

WD-40 = water displacement 40, not so much of a lubricant. Your call there. I'd use grease.

.

What type of grease specifically should I use?

[waterlogged882]

What type of grease specifically should I use?

Any brand of wheel bearing grease or marine specified grease that is water resilient. Here is one example that I have in the shop. However a general purpose grease will work.

[Mark rsa2au]

I did mine last winter. Easy enough to do but not sure if it really needs to be done every year especially if your bilge is kept mostly dry. When I took the starter off this season it still looked perfect so add a bit more grease ( because it was out anyway) bolted it back up and made note note to bother next year. I used high temp marine bearing grease as I had a tub of it and it was recommended in the service manual.

Ps: The starter was completely dry when I took it off the first time. It seems to have made no performance difference with out without grease, but will add piece of mind and perhaps increased longevity/reliability.

[gwozhog]

Not hard, not a bad idea, and not a lot of people do it. Remove the starter and put grease in the bendix area and on the gear. Not a lot but enough to justify taking the starter off and back on. Generally speaking, you'll loosen a few bolts back near the flywheel. Take a photo of your cable connections before you disconnect anything. The starter will slide away from the flywheel easy...same going back on. Not complicated, especially on a direct drive (room to work).

WD-40 = water displacement 40, not so much of a lubricant. Your call there. I'd use grease.

.

Not alot of people do it because its really not necessary.

[Mark rsa2au]

Not alot of people do it because its really not necessary.

Having done this twice now, I am inclined to agree - not really necessary unless your bilge is constantly wet / lives in the water as the grease will prevent rust etc and will increase reliability.

I do note that automotive starter motors are not greased, at least not the ones I have seen. And considering the current automatic start/stop of modern engines I think these starters get worked a whole lot more than in a boat, and I have not seen a service manual requiring these to be removed and greased but then they don't sit inches above a pool of water etc.

My excuse was I was bored during lockdown, had a fridge full of beer in the shed, and a house full of women, so locked myself in the shed, lit the fire, turned on the sport on the TV, cracked a beer and took my time...

[blackhawk]

I always use white lithium grease. I do mine as part of my springerize instead of winterize process.

[bturner2]

Being a low seasonal hour boater in the north with no saltwater even in site, I have never once greased the starter in any of my boats going back to my first boat at age 12. I have replaced burned up starters maybe 5 or 6 times on boats that I've owned or worked on for friends. Aside from my days starting out with absolute junk boats and some go fast boats my friends and I played with I just really have not had many issues with starters. I know at lest 2 of those starters were rebuilt automotive starters that got replaced well.... because after having a boat burn with me in it I thought it was a good idea. The high compression boat motors in the go fasts had a tendency of burning up due to the nature of their engines and I know I changed at least 4 starters there. BTW greasing the benix on these monsters would have had zero affect on why these failed.

As to having a bendix stick because it wasn't greased.... sorry, I have never ran into that, maybe because I only do freshwater boating. Would it hurt doing it? Only if you screw it up in the process which is always a possibility for anyone. While there's plenty of good stuff to be said about keeping a good maintenance schedule, there's also a lot to be said about not messing with something that isn't broke or of need of maintenance. Another one of these items IMO would be changing or messing with the metal filter in the vDrive. I know it says to pull it but I have yet to see one that has benefited from doing it.