Slightly Stewpid
Cadet
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2015
- Messages
- 29
Story time....So after checking all of the fuzes, batteries, relays, grounds, connections, deadman switch, neutral safety switch, keyed ignition terminals, back of the dash, etc. I pulled out my best tool, my wallet.
Ryan, the mechanic met me at the boat yesterday morning. He and I went over almost everything that I went over and almost in the same order, so I felt pretty good that I had done the right things and didn't miss anything simple. We started to think maybe the ECM was bad, but I had just had it tested.
Next we called Bob over at OBD Diagnostics and he was adamant that the ECM was fine. What I learned from Bob is that part of their diagnostic process is to hook up the ECM to a full engine harness so they can make sure that the it is doing its job correctly for every component that it interacts with. So we started down the road of why the ECM wasn't working.
We pinned out all of the ground wires in the J connectors (J1/J2 are the 32 pin connectors that plug into the ECM), these were fine. The J connectors were also showing that it was getting both constant power and switched power, but there was a drop in the constant power of about a half a volt. 11.96 I think vs 12.56 for the switched power. Now Ryan, the mechanic, took my test lamp and touched the constant power wire at the J connector and it did not light up, he checked the switched power and the lamp work perfectly. At this point we checked the constant power coming out of the fuze box and it was 12.56. Somewhere between the fuze box and the J connector, we were dropping the .6 volt in the constant power wire and with any type of load, the constant power failed at the J connector. We pulled apart the J connector on the off chance that the wire was not seated properly in the connector, but it looked fine. So we jumped the constant power wire from the fuze box to the J connector and turned the key. I got the audible alarm and the fuel pump primed.
I thanked Ryan and told him that I could handle it from here. I soldered a new wired in place, wrapped it in plastic sheathing to protect it and ran it parallel to the harness. Turned the key and nothing....for a brief second I thought about drilling a hole in the hull and watching the boat sink, but I remembered that Ryan had pulled the fuze for the constant power so that I would not have to undo the batteries again when I put the new wire in place.
Put the fuze in, turned the key, got the beeps and the fuel pump primed. Turned the engine over and it fired first try.
I am a very happy person today.
Thank you for all of the suggestions from everyone here and the time you guys spent thinking about how to solve my problem. I really do appreciate it.
Ryan, the mechanic met me at the boat yesterday morning. He and I went over almost everything that I went over and almost in the same order, so I felt pretty good that I had done the right things and didn't miss anything simple. We started to think maybe the ECM was bad, but I had just had it tested.
Next we called Bob over at OBD Diagnostics and he was adamant that the ECM was fine. What I learned from Bob is that part of their diagnostic process is to hook up the ECM to a full engine harness so they can make sure that the it is doing its job correctly for every component that it interacts with. So we started down the road of why the ECM wasn't working.
We pinned out all of the ground wires in the J connectors (J1/J2 are the 32 pin connectors that plug into the ECM), these were fine. The J connectors were also showing that it was getting both constant power and switched power, but there was a drop in the constant power of about a half a volt. 11.96 I think vs 12.56 for the switched power. Now Ryan, the mechanic, took my test lamp and touched the constant power wire at the J connector and it did not light up, he checked the switched power and the lamp work perfectly. At this point we checked the constant power coming out of the fuze box and it was 12.56. Somewhere between the fuze box and the J connector, we were dropping the .6 volt in the constant power wire and with any type of load, the constant power failed at the J connector. We pulled apart the J connector on the off chance that the wire was not seated properly in the connector, but it looked fine. So we jumped the constant power wire from the fuze box to the J connector and turned the key. I got the audible alarm and the fuel pump primed.
I thanked Ryan and told him that I could handle it from here. I soldered a new wired in place, wrapped it in plastic sheathing to protect it and ran it parallel to the harness. Turned the key and nothing....for a brief second I thought about drilling a hole in the hull and watching the boat sink, but I remembered that Ryan had pulled the fuze for the constant power so that I would not have to undo the batteries again when I put the new wire in place.
Put the fuze in, turned the key, got the beeps and the fuel pump primed. Turned the engine over and it fired first try.
I am a very happy person today.
Thank you for all of the suggestions from everyone here and the time you guys spent thinking about how to solve my problem. I really do appreciate it.
