Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

Firing the engine if the starter fails?

My Volvo 2003 is a wonderful engine that works great. I have had the starter motor rebuilt this year, but getting it out was a monumental task that would be essentially impossible to do by myself at anchor and totally impossible by myself at sea. The engine has a place for a hand crank and the cylinders can be decompressed to facilitate hand cranking/starting. But life being what it is, the way the engine is installed in the boat, there is no way to spin the crank and no modification can be made to allow this.

So there was my thought. What if I purchase a powerful 28 volt electric drill and get a chuck machined to fit the crank receptacle on the engine. I would then keep the drill charged at all times when at sea, using my on board inverter, and hope I'll never need to use it to start the engine. Will this work? Your thoughts please.

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