Ignition Troubles

[Haasman27]

Hey all, I have some issues happening with my ignition.

1977-78 not sure Evinrude 85 HP.

The boat worked just fine recently. I have been working to fix some issues as the lights and such were not working in the gauges. I found that it was due to a faulty headlight switch. I have a purple wire that I taped into to get "ignition on" power to the gauges. I noticed that all of a sudden that wire no longer had power. And also when I turn the key the motor will not crank. When I give the purple wire to the ignition switch power it cranks over just fine. Any ideas on how to trouble shoot this? I was thinking that the ignition switch should get power from the selenoid but all of the wires go into a harness that goes to the engine.. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[crxess]

Re: Ignition Troubles

Possible in line fuse or fuse link fried. Ignition feeds the solenoid(small start wire)

Any fuse panel? Fuses with-in 18" of battery off positive side?

 

[Haasman27]

Re: Ignition Troubles

There is a small box that houses the solenoid. Battery cables come from battery to this box then to the solenoid. There is one fuse in that box. I checked it and it seemed fine. I also bypassed it with a jumper to make sure it wasn't a bad fuse that I couldn't see. The only wires that connect to the ignition switch come from the harness that goes to the motor... what am I missing?

 

[Haasman27]

Re: Ignition Troubles

Never mind. Found a popped fuse under the engine cover. Whoo hoo fishing on FRIDAY!

 

[Lion hunter]

Re: Ignition Troubles

If you keep blowing fuses I would rethink tapping into wires to find a hot wire. It's best to get a terminal block and run a hot wire fromm the battery to it and and hook accesories to the terminal block. You can run the headlight switch from the terminal block and tap into that for gauge lights. Then your isolated to the headlights blowing a fuse and not something on the motor.