1997 Force 75 .. new to outboards, it looks sick.. help?

[tw_curt]

Bought a wreck of a pontoon boat, was told by owner that "it looks bad, but the motor was recently rebuilt and runs great" well I could use a new project so what the heck I'll take a chance.

Brought it home, cleaned it up, connected a battery and some gas and fired it up (50:1, with earmuffs/hose of course)

It fired up okay, but I noticed no telltale, so I shut it down to take a look.

To my horror, I found.. well.. disconnected wires! I am okay around engines in general but I know nothing of marine outboards. Anyone know whats going on here?

The two yellow wires seem like they should be connected to the sockets, the purple wire is just hanging loose. And on the left side, there is a pair of joined red wires that again are just hooked up to nothing.

I would greatly appreciate any guidance at all on this, I am afraid to fire it up again until I have the electricals resolved.

 

[tw_curt]

So I found a service manual online not for this engine, but for "MODELS
75 • 75 MARATHON • 75 SEA PRO
90 • 100 • 115 • 125 • 65/80 JET"
And it seems super close.

From what I can see in the wiring diagram I THINK is closest, the yellow wires coming from the voltage regulator definitely should be connected to the stator.. I'm assuming the previous owner somehow lost/cut the connectors so he just wadded up the wire and shoved it in there. Assuming they came out while the engine was running, any consequence? VR fried? How do I check?

The Red wire seems to be some kind of output/input for the trim/tilt which the previous owner said was "new" so I'm assuming he rewired it somehow to not require it, as the tilt function works well.

The purple seems to be some kind of temperature/over-rev warning indicator? I guess whatever it's supposed to be hooked up to is gone, or can I run it up to a light on the console or something? I've already stripped this thing down to the deck and am ordering more carpet, but if this engine is toast I might abandon the project as I am not in the mood to drop $6k?+ ish on an outboard when I have to spend that much getting the boat reconditioned.

I continue to search for resources on what these things are and are supposed to do, manuals are all behind paywalls, which again I don't mind getting if I have some assurance this is not a lost cause.

There is still the matter of the lack of telltale, I guess I should check the impeller? pull the thermostat? I'll need gaskets to do that.. sheesh I was hoping this would just be a gas'n'go affair.

 

[tw_curt]

still at the 'stupid questions' phase of learning these things. So I am seeing that the two yellow wires are the AC input from the stator, presumably that's rectified and regulated by this little bugger and used to charge the battery. The grey is tachometer output? Groovy. but the gauge (the ONLY gauge) on this boat is "speed" so I'll go ahead and assume it's actually a tach that was calibrated at some point to indicate what speed that should be. I'm sure it's wrong. I'll be building my own panel with a tach. if I want speed that's what the GPS is for

 

[jerryjerry05]

Some motors didn't come with a tach??????
But they thought a speedo was more important on
a pontoon??? I always wondered why a speedo
on a toon???
The tach for the 97 75hp should be easy to find.
Teleflex or Faria

Google: Tiny Tach