Charging System Question-> Correct Voltage?

[65fabuglas]

1965 Mercury 350 - 35hp
Serial#1900802

My battery seemed to die on me today on the lake, would not turn the engine over a full revolution, luckily after about 5 minutes of my wife and I paddling a kind fellow in a pontoon gave us a pull back to the dock, thanks dude! (I really need to fix that pull start one of these days ,,,)

My question, is my battery really toast, since it's only 1 year old (from Fleet Farm) or do I have charging system problems?

It's down to about 12.3 volts. When I got home I threw on the muffs and took a spare car battery and jumped it, it cranked like $1,000,000 and fired right up - with the car battery connected, I read about 12.5 volts (with motor on high idle), when I disconnected it and let it run on just the boat battery, it dropped to about 12.4 Volts.

This seems low, do you think my charging system is working properly? I have a lame Seloc Manual I wasted my money on and it doesn't list any voltages.

I found a couple other posts for different makes/models/hps that say approx 13-14 volts, I am checking the voltage right at the battery with a high quality Amprobe digital multi-meter.
Many thanks!
cdc

 

[Barnacle_Bill]

Re: Charging System Question-> Correct Voltage?

Your charging system is not working.

 

[KD4UPL]

Re: Charging System Question-> Correct Voltage?

You should see 14 volts or more with the engine running. Your charging system is not working at all.

 

[65fabuglas]

Re: Charging System Question-> Correct Voltage?

thanks for the confirmation guys, guess I'll chase the wiring next, it doesn't appear I even have a rectifier/voltage regulator on my motor, according to the wiring diagram in my (questionable) Sealock manual, so manybe it's simple as that.

To be honest, rest of the wiring is all hacked together, the choke and starter are seperate switches, I assume to bypass the ones in the key in the merc-control, I actually have a couple extra wires coming out of the powerhead because of this, I'm thinking, if previous owner had something jumpered somewhere, to make the recharge circuit work, since he had everything 'cept for the kill switch bypassed in the mercontrol, maybe said jumper fell off and now my battery isn't getting any juice back to it......from my analysis of the wiring diagram this might be the ticket....off to the garage

1965 Mercury 350 - 35hp
Serial#1900802