Re: Force 85 hooked up battery backwards
I happen to have first hand knowledge of this very issue on a 1985 force85. I didn't swap the leads, the guy I bought the boat from did. Honest!
It melted the 3rd cylinder CDI and shorted the rectifier to ground. The bad rectifier is causing your circuit breaker to trip (know for certain) and also grounding your kill circuit. (pressumably...still t-shooting mine).
To test if a bad rectifier is tripping the breaker, disconnect the black wire from the rectifier. Disconnect the battery before you do that.
Reset the breaker. It should stay set now. Then reconnect the battery. The breaker should no longer trip. If so, Radio Shack has the 25amp, 50volt full wave bridge rectifier you need for about $4. It does not have the threaded terminals tho, so I had to change the terminals to slide-on types and secured them with a little squeeze from the pliers and electrical tape. (Hey! Its all I had.)
Once the rectifier is replaced, unscrew the one nut securing the cdi packs to the left side of engine (opposite the starter). Look on the back of them for any sign of heat damage (melting). If none, screw them back on the engine.
To bypass your kill circuit and attempt to fire the motor, look on right side of engine for 10/12 position terminal block. Mine has two white wires on the right side screwed to a post where there is one white wire on the left side. Disconnect the two whites on the right side and keep them away from each other and away from other metal surfaces.
Try to start the engine now. It should show some sign of life. If it sounds lethargic or lumpy, you might have a bad cdi module even though it looked normal earlier. Which CDI module? Mine was the rear most, runs the bottom cylinder. Its been replaced, but Im still not certain the bottom cylinder is firing again.
That's all I got ... the experts can pickup from here.
