Engine stalling problem

[Soulshine]

Good morning,

I have had a touchy neutral safety switch on my starboard inboard.

The boat is is equipped with 340 hp 454s and straight velvet drives.

Out of of the blue yesterday I had it stall in the canal twice and restarting took some fiddling with the gear shifter. It was running fine at 1000 rpm at the time.

Could the neutral safety switch be the culprit here?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Espos4]

Possibly. Doesn't it also cut engine speed when shifting from neutral to forward or reverse?

I think there is a switch mounted on the bracket on the engine for the throttle/shift cable bracket.
if you press the "throttle only" button, does it still stall when shifting out of the neutral position?

 

[LiquidWrench]

The cut out switch and throttle only buttons are for sterndrive setups, the OP has straight inboards.

The neutral safety switch should only come into play when starting and shouldn't cause problems when the engine is already running. That being said I would still get the problem fixed before it leaves you stranded with only one engine somewhere.

One way to check would be to TEMPORARILY bypass the switch and see if the problem continues. Just be absolutely sure it's in neutral before startup.

 

[Westie]

There is no way that the neutral safety switch is the problem with stalling. It only cuts power to the starter circuit when not in neutral.

 

[Soulshine]

There is no way that the neutral safety switch is the problem with stalling. It only cuts power to the starter circuit when not in neutral.

I thought that way myself.

I did find find very unsatisfactory connections at the switch and made repairs. It starts every time now, so there's that.

Thanks for the pointers folks.