Force 70hp no spark

[glock holiday]

Hello all im new to the forum here but not to boating...Im having a few issues with 94 force 70hp motor..I bought the boat last year and took it to the lake and it ran great...stored it for the winter and a few months ago went to start the motor and it wasn't getting spark...To make a long story short I was having intermittent spark but only when I would toggle my kill switch...I replaced the switch with 1 from autozone but that didn't fix it...I then bypassed the whole switch all together but leaving the wires disconnected...well the boat ran good and would start the 10 or so different times when I stored it within the last month...Today I went to run it again to prep for the lake and it will not start...no spark...no power to the coils...so this is what I have...no kill switch wired at all and the boat will not start, any ideas...why when I bypassed the switch a few months ago it was running but now its not...do I need to just wire in a new switch.....im looking all over the web for a new switch but most of them are push button style and the 1 I had before was a toggle switch...in need of help...thx rick

 

[glock holiday]

I forgot to mention that while I had the control box off I replaced the ignition switch also...I bought the same switch and all the wires were the same and colors matched up, the original was getting old and would hang up when I would let go of the key so I went ahead and replaced it with this new one...In reality I never used the kill switch anyways and being a small 18ft pontoon boat I don't forsee myself flying out of the boat and needing the kill switch...is there a simple way to just bypass it myself that im not doing correctly when I just removed the old one and didn't replace it?

 

[The Force power]

Welcome to IBoats,

disconnect the "Kill-wire" on the motor, if that solves it; its in the wiring
I don't encourage disconnecting safety features!

 

[jerryjerry05]

outboardignitiondotcom has test procedures for your motor.

There are 2 kinds of "kill buttons"
One completes a circuit and the other breaks the circuit.
Figure out the kind you have then replace or test yours?
Sometime a blast of WD or contact cleaner can make a difference.

 

[glock holiday]

I have a new kill switch on order, I’ll let you know how it goes...thx guys for the help..much appreciated

 

[VivaLaMigra]

I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one online, either, so I'll tell you to go ahead and ditch the kill switch. Nobody ever clips the lanyard to his belt anyway! Can't tell you how many times I've gone up to a boat where the "pilot" or helmsman is cranking the engine futilely with a look of frustration and saying: "It ran perfectly all day!" only to be told that the man-overboard switch on the control box or dash is shorting it out 'cuz somebody snagged the lanyard. Have you checked the stator, powerpack, and trigger? I have a COMPLETE ignition system put on one of those motors last season - fresh red stator, CDI Electronics trigger, and good pack - and the motor detonated #1 cylinder. If you need parts, let me know.

 

[glock holiday]

well I replaced the kill switch with an oem part and still no go..I called a boat mechanic near me and he told me to unplug the wiring harness and then jump the motor which I did and it didn't start which means its something on the motor....I guess ill check all the wiring and maybe start looking up parts...yo viva imma send u a message cause I might need some parts...thx

 

[jerryjerry05]

I" called a boat mechanic near me and he told me to unplug the wiring harness and then jump the motor which I did"
That would have never worked anyway???????​

Three Cylinder Engines Mercury Designed Ignitions 1992-1997 Engines Using a Single Switch Box and Three Ignition Coils
No Fire At All: Disconnect the black/yellow kill wire AT THE PACK and retest. If the engine’s ignition fires now, the kill circuit has a fault-possibly the keyswitch, harness or shift switch. Disconnect the yellow wires from the stator to the rectifier and retest. If the engine fires, replace the rectifier. Check the cranking RPM. A cranking speed less than 250-RPM will not allow the system to fire properly. Check the stator resistance and DVA output as given below:
Motors with Black Stator
	Wire	Read To	Resistance	DVA
	Blue Red	Engine Ground Engine Ground	3250-3650 75-90	180V or more 25V or more
Motors with Red Stator
	Wire	Read To	Resistance	DVA
	White/Green	Green/White	500-700	180V or more Red Stator Adapter Wire Read To Resistance DVA Blue Engine Ground Open 180V or more No fire or Intermittent on One or More Cylinders: If the cylinders are only acting up above an idle, connect an inductive Tachometer to all cylinders and try to isolate the problem cylinders. Check the trigger resistance and DVA output as given below: Wire Read To Resistance DVA Brown wire (#1) White wire (#2) Purple wire (#3) Brown wire (#1) White wire (#2) Purple wire (#3) White/Black White/Black White/Black Engine GND Engine GND Engine GND 800-1400 800-1400 800-1400 Open Open Open 4V or more 4V or more 4V or more 1V or more (a) 1V or more (a) 1V or more (a) This reading can be used to determine if a pack has a problem in the triggering circuit. For instance, if you have no fire on one cylinder and the DVA trigger reading for that cyli?lder is low — disconnect the trigger wire and recheck the DVA output to ground from the trigger wire. If the reading stays low — the trigger is bad. Check the DVA output on the green wires from the switch box while connected to the ignition coils. Check the reading on the switch box terminal AND on the ignition coil terminal. You should have a reading of at least 150V or more at both places. If the reading is low on one cylinder, disconnect the green wire from the ignition coil for that cylinder and reconnect it to a load resistor. Retest. If the reading is now good, the ignition coil is likely bad. A continued low reading indicates a bad power pack.

 

[glock holiday]

I disconnected the black/yellow wire already and the motor didn’t fire....only problem I have now is I don’t have a dva setting on my multimeter (

 

[VivaLaMigra]

Glock, you can get a DVA converter box gizmo pretty cheap on eBay. I bought one and it works OK. It's an approximation. If I don't have it handy then I use the old rough rule of taking an AC voltage reading and figuring it's 40% higher than that. If there's no juice - zero reading - then that's a pretty definite indication that the stator is Kaput!

 

[VivaLaMigra]

Glock, one last thing. I have a mechanic friend of mine who swears that powerpacks have a nasty habit of going bad AFTER they haven't been run for a while. And I've seen the syndrome a couple of times. I'm no electrical engineer but I wonder if it MIGHT have something to do with the capacitor holding a charge for a while then going Pop? I wonder if it might be a good practice to turn the motor off, disconnect the stator, then crank it. Theoretically, that would have the TRIGGER discharge all the capacitors in the pack and they wouldn't be recharged by the stator. Whether that would prevent this phenomenon or not, I don't know. I last had it happen on a Suzuki last year. Motor hadn't been run for ages. I started it up and ran it for about half an hour. Shut it off, and attempted to restart - powerpack was NFG!

 

[VivaLaMigra]

Jerry, regarding the "two types of kill buttons" I think I've seen generic ones with THREE wires on them the switch MAKES one circuit while it BREAKS the other one. I don't recall motors from Back in the Day like Chrysler Magnapower or equivalent OMC and Mercury setups where the pack was energized with a 12V supply that ever had a kill, or man overboard, switch. It certainly wasn't on the control boxes back then from any manufacturer. But, all it took was for one idiot to go overboard and have the boat circle around and cut off his fool head, and we've been cursed with that "man overboard" switch ever since!

 

[glock holiday]

Well I replaced the powerpack a few days ago and it still had no spark, pulled the flywheel and it and the trigger looked like new...no loose or burnt wires...tested the trigger resistance and all good...went to check the stator resistance and red wire was witihin spec but blue wire showed nothing...so a new stator is on the way or possibly working out a deal with a member here on a used one...If any1 has a new stator for this motor that's not being used hit me up within a few days and ill buy it...mine is the stock black glued magnet stator and im looking for the same or a cdi unit, not really interested in the red stator cause of the adapter cost and fact that it could go out and still cause issues on the lake...thx