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I've been promising that I would provide for the Forum lessons learned from my attempts to repair/replace the starter on my W50. Recently, I worked in collaboration with Mike who just recently replaced his starter and had a much different experience from me.
Anyway, if you want to replace your starter I strongly suggest that you remove your old starter from the boat. The reason is there are different variations of starters that purport they will fit a W50; some will, others won't.
Attached is very unclear picture of my original starter and a starter I bought off the internet. I've posted this to show, for my engine, the mounting bolt holes' orientation are critical. The solenoid needs to be mounted close to vertical and the mounting holes are roughly at the 10 o'clock and 4 o'clock position. The starter I bought bolt holes are rotated roughly 90 degrees (i.e., roughly 7 o'clock and 1 o'clock). There's no way that it would fit.
Attached is a picture showing the orientation for Mike's original starter and the new one he recently purchased on Ebay. They worked fine on Mike's engine, but the bolt hole orientation is similar, if not identical, to the internet purchase I made would and clearly would not work on mine.
To add to the confusion, I did get a new starter from a Westerbeke dealer. It looked like my old starter, had the proper bolt pattern, fitted up well, but.....bendix gear diameter was too large (1.51" vs 1.41"). This caused the starter to jam on the flywheel. So.....more confusion.
I may have ordered starter from Westerbeke (dealer) by part no from the manual that came with my engine. If I did, there is a chance that my boat had a W50 variant with requires a special starter. I know the bell housing is different because replacing the starter is a real challenge (need about a 3 foot extension to remove the lower bolt extending it in from the front of the engine. I had been told that I had a bell housing variant that caused this problem. Anyway, if it is a special starter for my variant only, the bendix gear is wrong.
To summarize, when dealing with your starter:
1. Check the bolting orientation of your existing starter. If it's like Mike's, you're probably in luck. Order a starter from Ebay of Amazon. It's probably OK.
2. If your bolting orientation is like mine, the orientation of readily available starters probably won't work. My first step would be to try to rebuild the old starter. Solenoids and/or rebuild kits are available. I've listed a source for a rebuild kit with my post under "Deals/Buy/Sell" and "Used W50 for sale as whole engine or parts." If you want/need to replace the starter and find one with the proper bolt hole orientation, check the Bendix Gear diameter.
Hope this helps. This was very frustrating for me. I hope I can spare others from the pain
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Starter recently purchased by Mike.JPG [ 117.55 KB | Viewed 0 times ]
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Starter Solenoid Orientation 001.jpg [ 1.6 MB | Viewed 0 times ]
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_________________
Jim Voelxen
Odyssey #191
Home Port: Osterville, MA
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