Hello,
I've got an 83 Starcraft 16SS with a 70's vintage Johnson 70 hp. Last year I bought a new marine battery from Napa and it wouldn't hold a charge. The did a load test on it and they said it wasn't any good and gave me another. I replaced it and ran into the same issue. I assumed that I couldn't have gotten two bad batteries in a row, so tried to figure what was draining the battery. I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to electrical, so I had a friend that works on boats look at it. He said he couldn't fine anything that would drain it, and also thought the battery was fine. For extras hooked to the battery I have a fish finder and bilge pump that came with the boat, and a 12 volt plug that I added with nothing plugged into it. I'm not really sure what to do. I thought maybe I'd unhook the extras and run it and see if it would hold a charge, and then hook one at a time up to see if there was some a short somewhere. The problem with that is the boat is 3 hours away at our camp, so I can't mess with it during the week. I'm not familiar with the charging systems on outboard motors as well, so I have know idea where to look here as well. I don't have any meters to test with only because I wouldn't know how or where to begin. Does anyone have any ideas for an electrical novice? I'm told 12 volt is easy to work on, but I've never really tried to learn to how. My thought was to see if I could get help here and see if it might be something easy before I brought it to a mechanic.
I've got an 83 Starcraft 16SS with a 70's vintage Johnson 70 hp. Last year I bought a new marine battery from Napa and it wouldn't hold a charge. The did a load test on it and they said it wasn't any good and gave me another. I replaced it and ran into the same issue. I assumed that I couldn't have gotten two bad batteries in a row, so tried to figure what was draining the battery. I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to electrical, so I had a friend that works on boats look at it. He said he couldn't fine anything that would drain it, and also thought the battery was fine. For extras hooked to the battery I have a fish finder and bilge pump that came with the boat, and a 12 volt plug that I added with nothing plugged into it. I'm not really sure what to do. I thought maybe I'd unhook the extras and run it and see if it would hold a charge, and then hook one at a time up to see if there was some a short somewhere. The problem with that is the boat is 3 hours away at our camp, so I can't mess with it during the week. I'm not familiar with the charging systems on outboard motors as well, so I have know idea where to look here as well. I don't have any meters to test with only because I wouldn't know how or where to begin. Does anyone have any ideas for an electrical novice? I'm told 12 volt is easy to work on, but I've never really tried to learn to how. My thought was to see if I could get help here and see if it might be something easy before I brought it to a mechanic.
