Anybody Ever Had a V17 Tournament Wiring Replaced for Motor?

[driz]

I redid all the forward electrical stuff for my rebuild. I left the controls and motor electrical alone other than to clean things up, put looms on aged wiring ect. The only thing I added was a 2 battery Seasense shut off dial switch to kill everything. As far as I can tell the dash had no wiring to the engine whatsoever.
When I took the boat apart over a year ago I left the motor controls intact. THe engine ran fine at the time. I go to fire it off today nothing. I get no juice to the engine whatsoever. Only the trim works but there is no juice at the starter, relay ect.
Everything I did to this boat I tried to do top notch so as not to have to be going back, good crimps, heat shrink everything right, as far as I know. I did look at a diagram that showed a cannon plug on this boats motor electrics. I'm not seeing one down below. The motor is a 83 4banger Merc 500 and it does have a large plug down on the starboard side of motor below the fuse (ok) going to the starter I believe. That is buried down deep and never messed with by me secured by a spring loaded clamp. So the question is "is that the cannon plug or is there another that got unplugged during all my other excavations"??????? Of course to go down into that ventilator area behind the foam is a major PITA so I don't want to separate that vent and hose if I can help it, been there done that once already [-o< Gee it started out as a real go for it day then went straight to crap #-o #-o #-o #-o #-o

 

[perchjerker]

are you sure that battery switch you installed is correct?

do you have power going into it and coming out of it?

how are your battery connections?

some pics would help

 

[driz]

Yup. Hot on both sides of switch, I probed it all. All the connections are fully cleaned or replaced and sealed under that electrical sealer OEM uses on things. The thing. Can't see is the area on the side panel where all those wires go before the controls.. Something looks to be completely unhooked as there is nothing at the motor at all. I'm not sure drilling the rivets for the controls box is going to give me access either without getting into a huge mess. I keep wondering if that cannon plug shown in the diagram is the one on the engine or there is one down below deck near the trim pump but I sure didn't see one down there that I can recall or see.

 

[perchjerker]

did this run before you took it apart?

pics would help

oops I see it did

pics would help

almost sounds like you are missing a ground someplace.

Once I took out both my batteries in my Grady White one fall and charged them then put the back in the spring. But I had the simliar symptoms you have

then I discovered a wire that had fallen down under the battery area

I chased my tail for a while on that one

I bet you have a similar problem. If you did not mess with that cannon connector originally I would be look elsewhere

pics would help [-o< [-o<

 

[driz]

Here are the pics though I doubt they show much of use. Pardon the strewn cable mess. I had hoped to route them along the forward panel ahead of the batteries but found out everything came up short so there it sits waiting to be tucked into a plastic loom. I talked to a friend who wrenches boats and he said it is probably a ground too since the entire motor is electrically dead.

One pic shows the throttle setup and type
The engine pic shows the cannon plug under the electrical block. (never touched it)
The down shot on wires shows a large red and black wire cut who knows when. (not by me)
Other down shot of wire loom with engine / controls loom is showing a cut BROWN/WT stripe wire across from a PURPLE , never touched by me, as I found them.

Since all the wiring is going under that bulkhead behind the red master switch in the picture it is hard to trace every bit of it.

In the absence of a cannon plug in the electrics behind the gas tanks area I have yet to find my last option thought is to go behind that panel in search of some missing ground misplaced during my renovation.

One other concern is that I completely removed the fuse box during renovation. In it;s place went a breakered switch panel to each accessory. I don't recall any motor connections but nothing was marked so it's a great place to make a mistake. Add to that the loom disappears into that side panel then reappears up by the back of the control lever and taking that off is way to involved at this point to deal with. #-o

 

[driz]

https://www.maxrules.com/oldmercs/Wiring/1966ona/26A.jpg


This shows a direct hot from battery to the cannon plug to rectifier and solenoid. There is a fused fairly heavy hot going somewhere into the engine loom.

 

[driz]

Oh but I found it :roll: . I kept looking at the schematic I posted before and there is a hot going directly from the battery to the solenoid . Then why not mine. So I start looking at the solenoid and all I see is black. Nice big black and a nice equally big black going to the starter stud for a ground. One has a piece of red tape on it but the casing is BLACK. Of course it goes out of sight down into the loom below. That got me to thinking why........... The other end I finally ran down to the ground terminal on the troller battery. I did it using an ohm meter. That end had a BLUE piece of tape on it. Duhhhhh. [-X
[-X I found this late this evening so haven't switched up the wiring but I am betting it's the problem. Somebody set me up . Note the pic with the wire up in the air. That's just a few cents worth of spray paint :roll: . Now me or anyone else afterwards is going to mess that up again. Ughhhh, and I opened up a couple hours worth of repairs just to get back where I was before because of that stupidity. The best part is that by the look of it that wire had been that way since they switched out the motor who knows how long ago and it looked like a mechanic did it. [-X

 

[Fire1386]

Not sure of the year of this one, but does it have a kill switch lanyard? One that attaches to the driver in case they get tossed.

 

[driz]

Nope no lanyard. Just a tiny toggle switch that for the life of me has to be as useless as tits on a bull.

 

[perchjerker]

good

I figured you just missed something like I did

and yes, the pics help. Not to specifically fix the problem but to help us see the setup so that someone might have seen it and knew exactly what you were missing

the guy who did it probably did not have any red tape handy and had blue. He was probably just taping it up, not thinking about marking it

 

[driz]

Yea, whatever he was thinking I would like to kick him in the crotch :x . Anyways I had planned on being able to kill all the power with that big double switch and now I'm not quite sure what to do with it. The simple solution is to leave it as with the engine hot all the time. Id rather not but I trust that further unattended than the other 2 circuits (troller and panel / appliances).
Oh well, I got a pair of those strip LED nav running lights in the mail Friday. I was planning on using the old ones but the Minn Kota took up so much room there really isn't room to put it and still have room to step out from the bow pulpit. The new ones are going just under the rail where they are fully protected more or less. They have a stick on backing which I'm not crazy about but it will do at least for now. I'm not going to crack open a new tube of 5200 for that tiny project.

 

[driz]

I got everything all sorted out and fired up the Merc. It started and ran like it had been sitting 2 days instead of 2 years. Runs great, filled the whole garage with 2 stroke smoke :LOL2: . Now all I have to do is put the front nav lights on and wire them and it's ready for a water test. =D> It's coming together nicely for a very welcome change now.