2001 Johnson 90hp oceanpro - trim issues. everything is backwards.

[Pink Shibi]

Ok, so I am back my boat worked great for a while after my help here last time so I though I would come back.

Here is the story in easy to follow steps.

1. Put my boat on the lemon lot on base
2. someone (probably kids by the size of the footprints) turned on my killswitch and left it on.
3. took boat out to go fishing
4. battery is dead
5. jumped boat - ran fine so decided to put it in the water and pull the battery from my truck and jump it in the water.
6. jumped boat didn't start, tried again, nothing. at this point I have probably flooded the engine.
7. I look at killswitch it is visibly burned looking
8. reroute wires to exclude killswitch jump again tries and fails to start. then nothing. I bring boat home with disappointed friends and no tuna.
9. I look at wires. Notice several are significantly more corroded than I remember.
10. I get new battery and start testing circuits. nothing is working or working subpar.
11. decide to rewire boat myself. (bad decision by the way)
12. 1200$, lots of sweat, and three weeks later I have rewired boat(accessories mostly) myself and learned a lot about 12v boat systems I also moved battery to center console to avoid bilge water corroding my wires.
13.i now have everything rewired. except the engine harness and man the old wires were amazing in the fact that some still worked at all.
14. The power for the gauges (fuel, trim, battery voltage, and hour counter) in the console seems to be coming from the trim gauge. it has three wires from the harness white, purple and black. White = ohms from sender purple=ignition power black=ground. (looked up diagram)
15 go to connect ground and it sparks. I am seriously confused. there is 12v running from the black(ground) wire when checked with volt meter(also wire gets super hot super quick so I taped it off and left it be for now).
16. I hook up the trim switch it has redwhite = power bluewhite = up and greenwhite = down. all good to go on that front
17. I am in the back of the boat and have to raise the engine for something. I hit the trim tabs on the side of the motor and not the console
18 they are reversed!! down is up and up is down.
19 I am now thoroughly confused.
20 I NEVER touched anything in the engine.
21 I now touch the engine and trace the wires to a relay. I take it off and part of the mount is melty.

What have I done to the engine?
why is there power from a ground cable?
why is the trim on the engine working backwards when I never touched it?
oh and how do I fix it

thank you and I hope I have explained my problem thoroughly enough extra data is as follows
2001 90hp Johnson oceanpro model number j90vlsig
the relay that's mount is melty is Johnson part number 586224 or siemens vf4-15f21-z11
the gauge is a faria gauge don't know model number but I looked it up and I am connecting them correctly since the wiring for them all is the same.
last I used to be an electrician and I still manage to shock the **** out of myself(facepalm).

Pink shibi, out...

 

[Bosunsmate]

Re: 2001 Johnson 90hp oceanpro - trim issues. everything is backwards.

Thats quick for a 2001 to get corrosion.
Are you boating in the Dead Sea?
Have you checked to see you have spark on all cylinders?
Did you keep the same coloured wires when you rewired.
Make sure you wire the positive up to the positive on the battery, the other way around does bad stuff quickly. I put red tape around my positive terminal lead

 

[keefallan]

Re: 2001 Johnson 90hp oceanpro - trim issues. everything is backwards.

disconnect the harness going to the front of the boat. Leave the battery hooked up to the motor. See if everything works there. You should even be able to jump out the solenoid with a little ingenuity. Pull the plugs and do a spark test. See if the trim switch works right. At this point get the motor running right before you add another variable(like the wiring up front). You know what? I just looked at the year of the motor. I am not sure if you do what I said as far as jumping the motor out. I know you can do it with the red plug motors. But my advise still stands about stay at the motor first(if it's possible) and then mess with the wiring forward.

 

[Pink Shibi]

Re: 2001 Johnson 90hp oceanpro - trim issues. everything is backwards.

Thats quick for a 2001 to get corrosion.
Are you boating in the Dead Sea?
Have you checked to see you have spark on all cylinders?
Did you keep the same coloured wires when you rewired.
Make sure you wire the positive up to the positive on the battery, the other way around does bad stuff quickly. I put red tape around my positive terminal lead

@Bosunsmate: thanks for the reply
1. as for corrosion i mean the wires at the connectors like to the battery post. which is due to the fact that water on the deck drains into the hull rather than going out a scupper. poor design on stripers part. also previous owner connected wires in the bottom of the boat so when water got in there they shorted out. didnt know that until i took it all apart but its fixed now.
2. havent checked for spark or started engine. probably a good thing to do but maybe not. i am concerned if something is wrong with wiring i will just exascerbate the issue or break more things.
3. the wires for the harness have different plugs that do not allow you to mess them up (ie triangle plug goes in triangle hole and square plug only fits in square hole one way.
4. i am pretty sure i wired the battery the right way but maybe i got it wrong. i will check tonight. easy mistake for me since battery wires are both black.

thank you for the suggestions i will check the battery cables first and then attempt to start engine.

 

[Pink Shibi]

Re: 2001 Johnson 90hp oceanpro - trim issues. everything is backwards.

disconnect the harness going to the front of the boat. Leave the battery hooked up to the motor. See if everything works there. You should even be able to jump out the solenoid with a little ingenuity. Pull the plugs and do a spark test. See if the trim switch works right. At this point get the motor running right before you add another variable(like the wiring up front). You know what? I just looked at the year of the motor. I am not sure if you do what I said as far as jumping the motor out. I know you can do it with the red plug motors. But my advise still stands about stay at the motor first(if it's possible) and then mess with the wiring forward.

@Keefallen: Thanks for the suggestions,
1. Will the engine work without the ignition wired?
2. will the engine work without the tach/low oil/no oil/ overheat lights
3. do i just jump from solenoid to starter?
4. i dont want to burn out any electronics or burn them out further
is there a step by step somewhere?

 

[keefallan]

Re: 2001 Johnson 90hp oceanpro - trim issues. everything is backwards.

I truly can't answer your question totally. I have crossflow motors(red plug that goes to the front of the boat). I do know this though. If you remove the connector that goes to the front of the boat, there is no way any sort of electricity can leave the engine to go to the front of the boat. I don't think that there would be an issue with jumping out the solenoid but I can't answer that with complete confidence without seeing schematics or the motor in person. With my crossflow, if I jump out the starter solenoid, it's the same thing as using the key from the front of the boat. The yel/red wire sends 12v to the solenoid and closes the contacts inside the solenoid. The starter engages and you can run the motor without cables. But..............If I do run one like that(I now have a spare control box), I would have to manually choke out the motor to kill it. The power packs need to get grounded to turn off. I used to choke it off. This is how I used to check for spark, timing, etc.. I still know that if you jump out the solenoid, it is the same as using the key.....no volts going where they should not be going.. You'll have to get more advise from others who have fully worked on loopers or owned them. I do stand on my electrical advise. My trade profession for many years was a union electrician(even on that rock you call home!!!).

 

[Pink Shibi]

Re: 2001 Johnson 90hp oceanpro - trim issues. everything is backwards.

ok, sorry for the delay i fixed it and bosun's mate wins the prize. Power routed backwards to the engine. and somehow i blew a relay so i had to order that and wait for it to ship to hawaii. the trim is restored and panel doesnt have 12v coming from the ground anymore.

Now i took it out and the gas has been sitting a minute and must have gummed up the carbs or the fuel pump is bad. i cant catch abreak. it will run for a minute then die and i pump the ball and it goes again for a bit (~15 seconds) then dies. gonna check float bowl valves and the vacuum line to the pump first but i may be looking at rebuilding/replacing the pump again. im thinking it is the reservoir after the pump that has a sticky float valve and not the carb bowls/jets themselves. or the vacuum hose that sucks the diaphram in the pump has a leak or something and loosing pumping power because i replaced the pump about 75 hours ago. the problem didnt start immediately. i ran it one trip and it was fine but bad weather so i didnt stay out long then the next trip it made it about 3 hours then started this problem...

diagnostics performed so far.
pulled plugs. -dry with an odd reddish residue otherwise clean.
cleaned and regapped plugs
checked fuel water seperator - water in the seperator and some odd orang-red blobs of stuff.
drained fuel tank through a racor - then i put the old fuel in my truck.
new fuel - non ethanol in a jerry can ran the engine without going through racor(fuel water seperator)
still cutting out perhaps more frequently but i still get about 10 seconds of good running before it starts to die.

so its not the gas tank
its not the fuel filter
its getting spark. - didnt gap test will do soon
its getting air.
its fuel in the engine somewhere and there is only carbs and pump in there.

im kinda typing to myself, but if anyone sees a flaw in my thought process let me know.