1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

[clattin]

Soooooo.....where to begin? While my boat was in winter storage, I disconnected the negative battery connection, still the battery was stone dead and wouldn't take a charge (brand new battery). I took the battery back to West Marine and replaced it with another new one and used it to take the boat out for the first spin of the summer....no problems.

That was about a month ago, went to take the boat out yesterday afternoon and the battery was stone dead again. I hooked it up to my charger and it just stuck at 74% charge. I did end up taking it out on the water and it ran good for awhile. We stopped and fished for about 30 minutes and it struggled to start. We ran back to the dock and against my better judgement, I shut it down when I went to get the trailer backed down the ramp. Needless to say, when I went to start it up to load it.....stone dead. Not even enough charge to tilt the lower unit.

I brought it home and put the charger on it....again, wouldn't get over about 60% so I borrowed a neighbors charger and had the same effect. I took this battery back to West and they tested it and said it was fine but I swapped it out for a new one anyway. Brought it home, hooked it up and............nothing. So clearly, I'm not getting power from the battery to the rest of the electrical system, right? And it seems like there must be a short somewhere too that is draining the battery?

I HATE electrical stuff but I can't really afford to take it to a shop right now......the cables running from the battery to the engine appear to be in good shape and the connections seem tight. Could it be a bad alternator?


Engine is a 1986 Mercruiser 230 (5.0LX) which is the GM 305

Battery is the West Marine Dual Purpose 810 CCA 80Ah

Thanks!
Chris

 

[Bt Doctur]

Re: 1896 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Re: 1896 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

What was the voltage gauge reading while all this was going on?

 

[clattin]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

While we were running at speed, the voltage meter was reading about 14. But when everything goes, it does t even move off the peg. It's like all or nothing which makes me think wiring.

 

[clattin]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Or maybe the ignition switch in the dash?

 

[Bondo]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Or maybe the ignition switch in the dash?

Ayuh,.... Entirely Possibly the problem,...

 

[nola mike]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Except how would that cause the battery to lose charge?

 

[alldodge]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Battery is up to 74% when you left, fished for 30 minutes and it had a hard time starting....
I don't see a functing engine pulling the battery down even if the key switch was left on for 30 minutes. What kind of stuff is on your boat which uses juice other then the engine? Remove the battery cable and recharge, I'll bet it will come back up full charge. Disconnect all connections to your extra stuff. Put a volt meter on the battery and one by one reconnect your stuff until you see the meter change.

 

[clattin]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

There is just a radio/CD player, a ship-to-shore radio and a depth finder (that wasn't even on the boat at the time). I'll try your suggestion. I actually think the radio's use a separate connection to the battery than the main connectors that go to the engine

 

[Don S]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Get the battery load tested. Wouldn't be the first battery to fail.

 

[clattin]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Ok....here's a little more info.

When I was trying to charge the battery before and only getting it to 74% and to 50%, it was still in the boat and connected.

Last night, I took the battery out of the boat and charged it in the garage and it charged to 100%. I then put the battery back in the boat and get absolutely nothing to happen when I turn the key. If I let the boat sit for awhile with the battery connected and then turn the key to the "On" position, I will get movement of the fuel gauge although not all the way to the actual fuel level. If I then try to turn on the blower, then it drops back down all the way to empty and won't do it again.

I then got out my volt meter and while the battery is connected to the boat I put the red probe on the positive terminal and the black probe on the negative terminal and get 12.84 volts. I then moved my red probe to where the red wire connects to the starter and the black probe to where the black wire connects to the engine block and I get only 9 volts.

I suspect this is showing me the problem, but I don't know what it is. Shouldn't I still have 12 volts there?

Thanks!
Chris

 

[alldodge]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

I then moved my red probe to where the red wire connects to the starter and the black probe to where the black wire connects to the engine block and I get only 9 volts.

I suspect this is showing me the problem, but I don't know what it is. Shouldn't I still have 12 volts there?

You have a bad cable connection. It can be caused by the ground connection or positive cable. I would start with the grounds and clean all connections. Remove them, clean and reinstall. Then remove clean, and reinstall the positive. If that doesn't cure the problem you will need to determine what cable has the bad connection.

 

[clattin]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

What's the best way to clean them?

Thanks a ton!

Chris

 

[sptjet90Reflexx]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

How much rust is on your ground cable? Mine was so bad I cut it and made totally new ground on a different part of the motor. This solved my engine cutout and no spark issue. Ground is easy to relocate. The positive just unscrew the wires from the starter and get a wire brush and scrub them good. use some dielectric grease after cleaning then put them all back on and spray them with terminal protector.

 

[clattin]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Would this also explain why my battery has been getting drained?

 

[alldodge]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Would this also explain why my battery has been getting drained?

No, the bad grounds and/or positive connections will cause issues with charging. Starting, run time, accessary's all draining power and the ALT not being able to recharge is a possability. Need to fix the connection issues and then see if the problem went away of is still there. It could be when your fixing the connections you will discover what is causing the drain.

 

[clattin]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Ugh.....disconnected both the red lead to the starter and the ground and cleaned them with carb cleaner and a wire brush (they weren't very bad to begin with) and then reconnected using dielectric grease.....nothing. When I first connected the battery and turned the ignition to "on", several gauges on the dash came up like everything was fixed but the second I hit the tilt button to bring up the lower unit, they all dropped to zero again. I then re-did the red connector on the battery and still no help. The ONLY thing that happens is the fuel guage comes up to 1/4 tank (which is less than what's actually in there).

I give!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not really....any other suggestions? Still only getting 9v at the starter.

Chris

 

[alldodge]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

You probably have a bad ground somewhere so back to the meter reading. It is probably in one of your cables. Disconnect cables from the battery and one at a time connect your meter from the battery end to the point where it is connected, have meter set on ohms and you should read 0.0 ohms. Another test would be to crank over the engine or try, then after a few trys touch the ends of the cables and see if one of them is hot. The hot one is causing the issue.

If it turns out to be a cable with high resistance it is usually the connector end. The end would be cut off and replaced with a new one. Your gauges are showing signs of a bad ground. Not many boat manufactures go the extra distance and run a heavy gage wire up behind the dash for grounding items. Sounds like you could use one.

 

[Rd05lly]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Did you load test the battery. It may have 12volts but no amps.


Check in line fuse at Starter

 

[clattin]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Ok....they both read 0 ohms..........

 

[MWG2600]

Re: 1986 Chris Craft with Mercruser 230......total electrical failure! HELP!!

Have you checked the red circuit breaker?