Mercury 200 20 hp wiring harness (1971)

[user 7806]

Had the cover off my 1971 Mercury 200 200 hp today and the wiring was scary. The instalation was old and brittle and would crack and fall off if you looked at it funny. I took some shirink wrap and covers most to the bare wire and put it in some of that flexable wire covering. I would like to rewire the whole thing from the plug forward in the engine.

Haven't checked with the local Mercury dealer here to see if they have one. Anyone know of a good place to get a new woring harness for the this little motor?

 

[JMichael]

Oh boy!!! I hope you're ready for a bit of sticker shock. A new one is probably going to run you about $180 and even the used ones that occasionally pop up on ebay won't be cheap. Is it just the harness or are the wires from the stator bad too? I ended up rebuilding my original harness after seeing the prices they were asking for them. I had to cut back the plug to get access to clean non corroded wire, but then I just spliced all the wires with new good wire.

 

[user 7806]

If you mean the wires that to to the plugs they look fine. The wires to the coil and the starter were all brittle, at least the installation was. $180 I can buy a lot of wire for that price. Other that having to pull the top off the engine to get the the ones going to the stator from the coils. Then there is the starter wires from the plug, which I'm not sure how much of the original rubber instalation is actually left it's wrapped with electric tape. I think most of the wires were 16 gage is I'm not mistaken.

Did you use the marine wire or just plain automotive wire?
Did you color code it like the orginal?

 

[JMichael]

I tried to stay with the original colors as closely as I could. I didn't have a grey so I substituted green for that one. I used the wire I had on hand which is an automotive type oil and gas resistant insulation. I used 14 gauge since I had most of the colors needed in that size and most of my wires seemed to be 14. My harness wires and kill switch wires were the only one's I had to replace since the rest of the wires were in good shape.

 

[user 7806]

The more I think about it the more I think I need to get in there and replace all the wires that I patched up yesterday. I have some wire but not enough colors to do the job right so I'll make a shopping list and get colors that are close.

Thanks for all the tips.