re wiring boat switches plzz help

[Wr3sTl3b0y]

hey i just bought a 73 19.5 foot wellcraft 150 hp Johnson motor the switches were all screwed up tons of dead ends splices i took it apart not realizing how hard it would be i got 2 hot wires coming from the back along with a ground 1 hot and 1 ground go into a little board the ground is sent off to about 3 or 4 others running my switch grounds i assume my hot wire bounces around the board and gets sent off into a bus fuse panel with 4 fuses 20a 20a 15a 25a my second hot that comes from the back makes anything work without pushing the switch i dont know what to do with that wire

my ?'s come here how do i get everything working can one ground wire be sent off to all my switch grounds and be good??? how do i run my hots from one to another do i just put one hot from my switch to a bus fuse and im good to go the switches will work? plzz any help will work fishing tournament Saturday don't wanna misss out

thanks
kyle

 

[huntinfool]

It is not uncommon to have multiple hot and ground leads coming from the back of a boat. If you can seperate the leads back at the battery then just unhook one hot lead from the battery and not use it. (but leave it there for future use). Yes you can use one ground for all of your grounds at the console. Take your hot lead and energize the fuse block. Also run the ground to the ground board of the fuse block (if it has one). If there is only a hot lead then hook the hot wire to the block and now all the fuses have energy. Then take a lead from the other side of the fuse to the switch and from the switch to the item you are energizing. So in the instance of a bilge pump. You would have a wire from the + lead of the battery that went to the fuse block. From there it will go through the fuse and out the other side. Then a wire from the other side of the fuse to the switch. From the other side of the switch you run a wire to the bilge pump. I personally ground all appliances directly to the battery. I run a ground to the front for grounding other items. If I don't want to run a ground wire to the back again I just ground it up front.

Hope this helps and if you have any more questions please just ask.