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By the way, as for lubrication, I have always put a VERY THIN amount of light weight grease on the shaft. Usually I am replacing a starter that was a big ball of rust; so I tend towards putting SOMETHING on the shaft, even though nothing is really specified. I’ve been doing it for a lot of years an there haven’t been any problems from it, that I know of.
As you might guess, the trick to keeping the starter working is to check the operation of your automatic bilge pump, all the time. If you don’t have one, install one. And don’t launch the boat with the plug out. Ha ha, I know, but it happens. All it takes is for water to get as high as the lower teeth of the flywheel one time, and then the count down to starter failure starts. I know that Mercruisers have a supposedly sealed flywheel housing but this is sketchy.
Long live American manufacturing!