OMC stringer electric shift with 4 wires instead of 2 why?

[mculpii]

So I have an old stringer electric shift donor drive for a boat I'm working Part #982141. Someone told me this should be late 70's drive and was mated to a 5.7L Chevy with an upper 21:16 ratio. Has anyone seen where these electric shift drives have four wires coming out of them instead of the standard blue and green? It has a Red, Green, white, and a black. Crazy I'm not sure what the other two wires would be. Not to mention I don't know which two are for shifting. Probably the green one is one but the other??? Any ideas.

 

[Redrig]

Re: OMC stringer electric shift with 4 wires instead of 2 why?

Where are the wires ? Coming from the lower unit ? or from the controller ?

 

[Howard Sterndrive]

Re: OMC stringer electric shift with 4 wires instead of 2 why?

my guess would be someone with a soldering gun and some heat shrink tubing cobbled non-OMC wires on there - I have seen lots of electric shift drives, even the mid 60's ones, and all had 2 wires.
Ohm meter referencing the case will tell you which 2 are going to the coils - 4 to 7 ohms from aluminum casing. keep your fingers off the probes and touch the leads together to verify if the meter is accurate.

 

[mculpii]

Re: OMC stringer electric shift with 4 wires instead of 2 why?

The wires are coming from the outdrive itself and route where the two wires should be on a standard stringer with the blue and green. Howard is probably right as the wires are a bit thicker copper if I remember correctly. I still just wonder why 4 maybe they went redundant and ran two to each. I have tested 12 volts on the green and got the prop to engage but didn't want to try others cause they didn't make sense. I will absolutely know in 5 minutes here when I go put the meter on and check my ohms on each to ground. I will update with my findings. Thanks Mitch