I had the starter on my port engine engaged all by itself and the key switch was not the problem .. in my case we were cruising along and for some reason the starter self engaged. We thought the engine room was on fire by all the smoke that was poring out.. The starter was frozen up and burned every wire in the starter system up... The starter was welded and the only thing we could save was the gear the rest was junk... The reason was found to be a weak solenoid spring that allowed the starter to engage.. I wonder just how many folks have these types of starter problems.. Mike Danforth