Johnson convert to electric start

[lotsofish]

I have a 78 Johnson 35hp motor I am converting to electric start. I have the bracket, starter motor and solenoid installed (tested off the motor and it works fine). The next step is to wire the thing up.

My question is this: If the motor is in gear, there is a plastic arm that moves that prevents the recoil from being pulled, so that the motor cannot be pull started while in gear. Is there also an electric circuit I should be tapping into that would prevent the starter motor from starting if the motor is in gear? It would be nice to have this so I couldn't accidentally start the motor while in gear.

[broken_line]

console or tiller?? if its a console there might be a switch in the controlls...it wouldnt be to hard to do you could just wire that switch between the key and the starter.. so when its in netural the silnoid will get power and when in gear it wont.. it doesnt really hurt anything to start the motor in gear.. just is really un safe if the throttle is advanced past idle..

[marine_man]

Usually there's a neutral switch near the slide for the shift linkage or it's in the control box. If you didn't have an electric motor to start with there likely isn't one on your motor to start with.

marine_man

[lotsofish]

I forgot to mention this is a tiller motor. I don't know if it's built into the controls (the reverse/neutral/forward switch) or not. I think there are a couple wires that are nearby that switch so I'll try probing those. What I'm looking for is if there is a wire that is ground only when the switch in is neutral.

If it's not possible, I'm not going to worry about it too much. Just gotta make sure the motor is in neutral when I start it so I don't get thrown out the back of the boat! Someone with a factory installed electric start Johnson/Rude from the late 70's-early 80's might be able to tell me if they can start their motor while it's in gear and that would probably answer if it's possible or not.

[broken_line]

just make sure its always started at neutral or ata an idle.. you should be fine.. neither of my 2 tiller jhonsons have any sort of neutral lock out..

[lotsofish]

Thanks, that's what I was thinking, but I wasn't sure.

Since there's no generator/alternator on this motor, it won't be charging while I drive around. What kind of battery should I use and about how many starts can I expect per charge?

[broken_line]

just about any larger sized car battery will work.. if you use a trolling motor look into a marine deep cycle made for cranking and slow draw.. ohh i would imagine 30 to 40 considering it starts easily.. but it should never go dead if you charge it, you have the pull starter yet right?

[lotsofish]

Nice, 30-40 starts should be plenty for most trips. The first start of the day usually takes about a half dozen pulls or so, but once it gets going it starts pretty easy. Yeah, I still have the rope to fall back on, but it will sure be nice not to have to use it.