Ignition Problems on my 1989 50 hp force

[dewey1]

Hey Guys this is my first post but not my first visit. This site has helped me out alot with my force outboard and tips toward buying my 8 hp tohatsu kicker motor. Well I will explain what happend. I was out fishing in my aluminum blue fin and my battery somehow got pushed up against the metal part of the boat that drops down in front of the motor (where the rack and pinion and steering cables and fuel line are) and when I went to start the motor nothing happend and I looked down to the battery and saw it up against the metal shorted out i slid it away and tried to start the engine and only cranked over didnt fire. so I got back to the dock on my kicker and when pulling my battery I noticed that it was melted...a pool of lead sitting on top near the terminal, the stud was melted and sideways....needless to say I am lucky noone was injured or worse. So I get home and pop the cowling open and see 2 black ground wires that were so hot the insulation melted off them and 1 even melted in half. wire no. 1 went from the starter solenoid to the engine ground and wire no.2 went from engine ground to the main terminal block (with the start, stop, choke, tach, pos. neg wires) I traced all the wires ringing them out to make sure they werent shorted out to any other wires or grounded out. and replaced the 2 black wires that were fried. I put my ohm meter on the terminal strip for the coils but im not sure I am testing it right....from one to another I got 43 ohms, from the same one to the next screw i got 99 ohms Im not sure if im reading the coil and that the coils are in series or if i am testing them wrong because acording to my clymer manual it should be like 1000 ohms. So now im just frustrated with this motor and kinda need a direction and a little how to to go with it. the last 3 of the engine number is 405 if that makes a difference. I just dont want to buy new coils if that isnt the problem or a new stator and be wrong. I came up with the fact im not getting spark because I spray some starting fluid directly into the carb and didnt get anything no sputter or nothing. plugs are tight and are not fouled. Thanks in advance for any help. -Eric

 

[celtic gelf]

Re: Ignition Problems on my 1989 50 hp force

eric check and replace all burned up wires...a multimeter well be of great help...not sure if any components were fired but you surely would have popped your circuit breakers...make sure these are reset or replaced when I had a ground out. it toasted one of mine...lucky a scrap marine yard from had a used one since they aren't available as a part thou the bracket for holding them are...you can test each of your components as the manual says it'll save you money since you can know what's bad and good

 

[celtic gelf]

Re: Ignition Problems on my 1989 50 hp force

can't you test the terminals on the coil itself? not the terminal bar..disconnect the coil power, ground and the spark wire... you test ohms from the black to ground and red to spark wire connection.....tell us what you read now

 

[dewey1]

Re: Ignition Problems on my 1989 50 hp force

I have replaced the bad wires. i saw the circuit breaker near the solenoid but figured it was not tripped because the engine was cranking over. Ill check it in a little bit and make sure. I can pull the wires to the coil packs off the terminal but im not sure whether to test them through the engine ground or another coil....im gonna grab my manual right now and look again. my dad said something about burning up my points.

 

[celtic gelf]

Re: Ignition Problems on my 1989 50 hp force

it'll be under testing the coils good luck

 

[dewey1]

Re: Ignition Problems on my 1989 50 hp force

the coils apear to be good. I have continuity between my start and stop circuits on the terminal strip and im pretty sure im not supposed to be reading 0 between them. the black wire in the stop sircuit apears to go to the coils from the wire terminal and start wire goes through the interlock switch to the solenoid. If these 2 wires are not supposed to be showing continuity the problem has to still be in the wire harness. also the start circuit and choke circuit show continuity which i didnt think it should. but when i disconected each wire separately they didnt show connected to one another. I assume they are reading through the engine ground/neg. My circuit breaker didnt trip either just checked it.

 

[dewey1]

Re: Ignition Problems on my 1989 50 hp force

it was the switch box under the coil packs