2 ignition switches in 3 trips

[brusk]

I have an 89 Evinrude 150XP that the end of last year fried an ignition switch that was less than a year old. It had rained that day and assumed water had gotten into it. Replaced it and took it out another 1 maybe 2 times and all seemed good. I didn't have a chance to take the boat out until today this year and everything ran good for the first 8 miles or so multiple stops fishing and then I noticed some smoke I feared it might have been the ignition switch so I grabbed it under the console and was given a massive shock to the hand. I immediately turned the boat around and killed the ignition. The engine wouldn't start back up and acted like it wasn't getting enough power to try to crank. After some troubleshooting I found that the ground cable wire had come mostly lose After tightening the bolt it cranked normal and fired right up but after 15 seconds the ignition switch smoked some more and completely fried not working at all. Had to have another boater tow us back.

Would a loose ground wire cause the switch to fry? Should there be that much current running to the switch to shock me? Switch that was installed was a Sierra MP41000 I'm assuming they should all be the same.

 

[gm280]

Okay lets try and answer your questions brusk. Yes you can get shocked grabbing the ignition switch and here is why. The wires coming from the ignition system run from the engine to the ignition AND kill switch so that when you turn off the key or pull the kill switch the engine stops running. So you grabbed the high voltage that gave you the shock. Now for the frying of the ignition switch. In order for that to happen you had to be drawing too much current through it. The ignition switch isn't made to carry much current. So you must have something drawing a lot of current connected via the ignition switch. Time to figure out your wiring as see...