'89 Mariner 200hp low voltage and alarm issues

tristanlee85

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
32
As the title states, I have an '89 Mariner that I've been battling an issue with the alarm always going off. It's not always a predictable pattern, but I'll base my results from today's start and idle.

When I turn the ignition on, but not crank, it's usually a solid beep. Sometimes it'll stay on for as long as the ignition is on. Other times, like just now, it stays on for 5 - 8 secs then turns off. I don't get the quick 3 beeps to signify everything is ok.

While this is beeping (solid), I disconnect the sensor wires. For the record, both temperature sensors AND the control box are brand new as of 2 weeks ago. The oil level cap is about 4 yrs old. Regardless, disconnecting the individual temp sensors and oil level sender wires does not change the alarm.

I've had a hard time finding a chart of what the different beeps mean. I believe that a solid beep (beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep) is related to overheating/temperature and the fast (beep beep beep beep beep...) is oil-related. However, something else other than those sensors/sender must be triggering this. Is there a water pressure sensor that could trigger it even though it's not overheating? That wouldn't make sense since it's a solid beep before the engine is even running. What about voltage causing the alarm to beep?

My volt meter reads ~12.3v while running. My depth finder is telling me low voltage. Just like my car and WaveRunner, I would expect the voltage to be ~13.8 while running. Could there be a bad rectifier/voltage regulator triggering this alarm? If so, where on this engine would that be located?
 

Dukedog

Captain
Joined
Oct 6, 2009
Messages
3,235
"I've had a hard time finding a chart of what the different beeps mean. I believe that a solid beep (beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep) is related to overheating/temperature and the fast (beep beep beep beep beep...) is oil-related."

above is exactly right.......

look on tha oilier module.. you will see a purple goin' to a term. on tha starboard side with a coupla (maybe only one) more purples.. disconnect tha one going to tha module.. alarm will probably go away.. this will eliminate tha over heat as tha problem... if it does go away i would say module is suspect.. tha only function of tha module is to make any input signal (low oil, rotation) oscillate.. beep, beep, beep, etc. and give self check beeps when key is turned on..

over heat sensor in starboard head only... tha one in tha port is for a temp gauge and has nothing to do with alarm

regulator/rec. is probably goin' south..possibly stator... chargin' has nothin' ta do with alarm.. oilier junk and over heat ONLY.....
 

tristanlee85

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
32
Thanks for the reply. So, any recommendations on where to look for this regulator/rectifier? I have no issues with the RPM reading correctly on the gauge, which I believe is a sign of a bad stator. When I search for images of the rectifier, I see a square box with 3 wires. However, I can't find anything like that on my engine in the above picture.
 

Texasmark

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Dec 20, 2005
Messages
14,544
You are correct on the beep code temp and oil, nothing else. The horn gets 12v from the key switch on a purple or red purple stripe on 2002 engines....don't know how far that color code system goes back so yours may be purple for switched 12v too. Anyway you are chasing the switched 12v wire for power.

The beeper is in your control box or strapped to your harness adjacent to the remote control box. From the low side of the horn (looking for a ground....battery -) you go to the engine connector ....for color code look at the horn terminal. Once through the mating connector that wire probably tees and goes to a modulator module to produce the dot dash for oil and from that module a wire goes to the oil float. The other wire of the tee goes to the rear of the engine block for tempand on a V engine you may/probably have a sensor buried in each water jacket cover....the plate that fits around the spark plugs.

The module gets a ground from the oil sensor when the level is low and it generates the square wave dot dash (ground and no ground) for the horn.

The OT sensor shorts out at about 195 F which gives you plenty of lee way over your 143F thermostats (one in each bank of cylinders) and it too produces a ground to sound the horn if too hot.

HTH
 

Texasmark

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Dec 20, 2005
Messages
14,544
Thanks for the reply. So, any recommendations on where to look for this regulator/rectifier? I have no issues with the RPM reading correctly on the gauge, which I believe is a sign of a bad stator. When I search for images of the rectifier, I see a square box with 3 wires. However, I can't find anything like that on my engine in the above picture.

Rectifier needs inputs which are from the stator, yellow wires on later models. Other outputs of the stator go to the triggers. Rectifier module maybe 1 ?" square black epoxy encapsulated, aluminum frame mounted on something, a plate with maybe trim relays or the engine block. Will have at least one large red wire with a couple of smaller. Large would go to input terminal of starting solenoid. for a 12v power distribution point which is where your red battery lead connects also. Regulator has a ground somewhere, a black wire. Tach output is grey in later models, maybe yours too.

Why are you looking at the regulator for a beeping problem? If it's because you initially measured 12.7 v, that's what I use for a full battery voltage without the engine running and battery stabilized from any previous charging. You aren't going to have more than that cranking. You have to get up to 1k rpms for any meaningful readings per the manual.
 

Dukedog

Captain
Joined
Oct 6, 2009
Messages
3,235
his is tha rectangular thing under tha coil plate.. its a combination reg/rec... its also water cooled.. only used from '89 ta '92.. kinda expensive even used!.
 

tristanlee85

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
32
Thanks for the information regarding the module. I will do some tracing and see if I can locate it.

Why are you looking at the regulator for a beeping problem? If it's because you initially measured 12.7 v, that's what I use for a full battery voltage without the engine running and battery stabilized from any previous charging. You aren't going to have more than that cranking. You have to get up to 1k rpms for any meaningful readings per the manual.

That's the issue though. I am not looking at the regulator for beeping (I was initially until realized it was unrelated). The issue is that with the engine running, I am not getting a charging voltage. Going down the lake at any rpm, I am seeing about 11.9 - 12.3v. When I trim the engine, it will drop into the 10s because of the current draw. I can spend all day on the lake with the radio playing and trolling motor use in 12/24v mode and not need to worry about the batteries being dead because they are both wired in parallel, but when I put it on the charger, they read a significantly lower charge % than they should. Assuming they were 100% the night before, depending on how long the stereo plays for, I may come home to both of them at 50% which is an indication of not charging.
 

tristanlee85

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
32
his is tha rectangular thing under tha coil plate.. its a combination reg/rec... its also water cooled.. only used from '89 ta '92.. kinda expensive even used!.

That's the section I haven't unbolted yet. I will pull that apart tomorrow and see what I find behind it.
 

Texasmark

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Dec 20, 2005
Messages
14,544
Thanks for the information regarding the module. I will do some tracing and see if I can locate it.



That's the issue though. I am not looking at the regulator for beeping (I was initially until realized it was unrelated). The issue is that with the engine running, I am not getting a charging voltage. Going down the lake at any rpm, I am seeing about 11.9 - 12.3v. When I trim the engine, it will drop into the 10s because of the current draw. I can spend all day on the lake with the radio playing and trolling motor use in 12/24v mode and not need to worry about the batteries being dead because they are both wired in parallel, but when I put it on the charger, they read a significantly lower charge % than they should. Assuming they were 100% the night before, depending on how long the stereo plays for, I may come home to both of them at 50% which is an indication of not charging.

Let me see if I read this correctly. You have 2 Trolling motor batteries, in parallel you said. Parallel means double the amps but same voltage.....12v. To get 24 (as you know) the 121/24 switch on your T.M. control stacks them in series. Somewhere in your boat is your engine starting battery....Is it one of your T.M. batteries?

Are you trying to bring your T.M. batteries back up to full charge with your engine charger? If so, you may have found your smoking gun with regulator problems. Most regulated power supplies on engines, regardless, Marine, P/U, car, tractor........are designed to keep a fully charged battery, fully charged with occasional engine starting power surges and low power continuous loads. They are not designed to bring dead T.M. batteries back to life. Yeah they are current and voltage limited but that's a design number and if you run them at the limit for any length of time you will overheat such and the silicon in the rectifier and regulation circuits melts and ceases to function. The service manual spells this out in detail.

I don't know how a water cooled regulator modifies the curve. I think I remember back there somewhere that Brunswick boasted of a 40 amp regulator on their larger engines like yours. Must have been the water cooled unit Dukedog was talking about. That may be an exception to the rule as they were designed for the Bass Boat installations and maybe they did have adequate heat sinking to stay cool. Assuming 40 amps continuous at 14.5v, 80 % efficiency, 20% heat loss in the regulator. You'd have around 116 watts additional into the cooling water. Considering the engine, at 200 hp and is 75% efficient would be 25% heat loss in the cooling water....... 37kW.......Obviously the heat load of a maxed out regulator would do nothing to modify the cooling water for the engine so one wouldn't consider that to cause temp sensor problems. No smoking gun there!

Just tossing some things around here and see if anything applies. Brainstorming the problem if you will.
 

tristanlee85

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
32
I appreciate the advice. Just to give some more info on my setup. I do have 2 batteries in the boat. Normally wired in parallel, and switch to series when I flip the switch to put the trolling motor in 24V mode. Once I flip the switch on the pedal to go back to 12V mode, then my batteries switch to parallel. That being said, the trolling motor battery is never dead. It's charge capacity is almost always the same % as my "starting" battery. Keep in mind though, when starting the engine, both are in parallel so it's equal draw from both batteries. And when in 24V mode, the "starting" battery still operates in 12V mode and will still be charged by the engine. I am using the Trollbridge 24 (http://www.yandina.com/troll24info.htm). Look at Schematic A for how I am wired.

The regulator should have no issues charging both of these batteries together. It is possible that I fried this regulator long ago when initially installing this device. The wires did manage to cross and spark which caused the device to cease to function and I needed to buy a new one before I ever got the chance to try it out on the water. This mishap could have easily killed the regulator too and it just took forever for me to notice it/connect the dots.
 

tristanlee85

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
32
his is tha rectangular thing under tha coil plate.. its a combination reg/rec... its also water cooled.. only used from '89 ta '92.. kinda expensive even used!.


Wow. You are right about expensive. I have found 1 so far that is used for $400. I have found some new CDI units that cost a little more. However, I am not sure that they are a direct replacement for what I have.

I removed mine and the part number says 18736-C. Most I find online are 18736A15 or A21. The CDI units also appear to have the regulators mounted externally on a plate that doesn't seem to be mountable on the head. Or perhaps it is and just doesn't have the heatsink on the back for water cooling. I suppose as long as it has a groove for the gasket to seal against the head, it should work.

My stator has 2 yellow wires, not 4 which is making this more difficult to find a replacement.
 

tristanlee85

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
32
"I've had a hard time finding a chart of what the different beeps mean. I believe that a solid beep (beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep) is related to overheating/temperature and the fast (beep beep beep beep beep...) is oil-related."

above is exactly right.......

look on tha oilier module.. you will see a purple goin' to a term. on tha starboard side with a coupla (maybe only one) more purples.. disconnect tha one going to tha module.. alarm will probably go away.. this will eliminate tha over heat as tha problem... if it does go away i would say module is suspect.. tha only function of tha module is to make any input signal (low oil, rotation) oscillate.. beep, beep, beep, etc. and give self check beeps when key is turned on...

This wire under my finger is coming from the oil level sender on the cap and it going into that module on the port side. I started the engine and waited until the rapid beep started. Then I unplugged this wire and the beeping went away. Tried it a few more times to confirm. So it sounds like I just need a new cap for the oil tank?

I could not find the module on the starboard side with the purple wires that you were referring to. When I first turn the key forward without starting it, I don't get the 3 beeps to signify everything is good. It's the solid beep. I started unplugging wires but couldn't get it to stop. Then I started the engine and it was still solid for ~10 - 15 second, then it went to the rapid beeping that I mentioned above.

So since solid beep is temperature related, and I don't see anything temperature related going into that module in the picture below where the oil level goes into, what other module could it be?

m83p-1ckvIHJWtoPs2zW5CW67-CDqDKusCCcM2WNJM8OZfSesGnqL796Rae7rI9dbwbdMJ9XX1N1Itx6B-3BgpVCATIzF889fOdi5fp1tufURgEdkkI4WyltOeLPIFg4WSWUF5f7vCkg8VXAxaS3gyzzjNZjVnwnSHlnzQX8JP_8Y8Py6Ky8CkQEe8fVArtaTgVLfrjv6PpvMcF9GoZOb5TlabBThD4b79wzKkUWBRM2X_ak8uh5-soSFb2qTuiXikSoFuIKibdlxBR5F9r9Flo5ts-u-gn7OsIBPnGaFzOicyH7WubPDmYzVgAJiiaplaqdMXvtTqRglJaPhgy7PsXmuMBt9As4c7Z8z-08bSV0ZMhpZB7abuGqnG0bFnaE0nFOzAyzFWsNiK-4cpcNx3uCm6jNadTfLCDwe9yPBcUo5T1fltgtalUz4U4gmAZep759pTBHe_C1erutF8iPcrcWbVMxKzzi2wb2mrqezdg0XrWIEEQlmQpwRHhp4LRIipAGkGkxMSMJOcndb_j5DF91hb30oeAqasdSgnuMGn_DvcEwqP5rMEoAOn02mffLebz0uOt2yOU4hV5LVvFSyyVFb2T1Kmgw06MPxLZhst8=w720-h959-no
 

tristanlee85

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
32
And yet another post... I did end up finding the purple wire, it's even visible in that picture above (doh). Key on with no start, it's a solid beep. I've disconnected both the oil and temp sensor and it doesn't change the solid beep before starting. After running the engine, it goes from solid to the rapid beep. Unplugging the oil level sender quiets that noise. I ended up unplugging the purple wire from the junction on the starboard side with the key on engine off and the alarm goes quiet.

So I would suspect somewhere along the line I crossed some wires that I shouldn't have and toasted both the warning module and the regulator. I have a new regulator on the way (http://www.boatersland.com/cdi194-1873.html) and found a couple warning modules on eBay that I am going to try. It has to be these 2 things since I have replaced everything else. :(
 

Texasmark

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Dec 20, 2005
Messages
14,544
I appreciate the advice. Just to give some more info on my setup. I do have 2 batteries in the boat. Normally wired in parallel, and switch to series when I flip the switch to put the trolling motor in 24V mode. Once I flip the switch on the pedal to go back to 12V mode, then my batteries switch to parallel. That being said, the trolling motor battery is never dead. It's charge capacity is almost always the same % as my "starting" battery. Keep in mind though, when starting the engine, both are in parallel so it's equal draw from both batteries. And when in 24V mode, the "starting" battery still operates in 12V mode and will still be charged by the engine. I am using the Trollbridge 24 (http://www.yandina.com/troll24info.htm). Look at Schematic A for how I am wired.

The regulator should have no issues charging both of these batteries together. It is possible that I fried this regulator long ago when initially installing this device. The wires did manage to cross and spark which caused the device to cease to function and I needed to buy a new one before I ever got the chance to try it out on the water. This mishap could have easily killed the regulator too and it just took forever for me to notice it/connect the dots.

Depending on the configuration most alternator power supplies have one set of diodes connected to the stator and ground. They are reverse polarized. If an accident occurs and the voltage applied to the + output terminal is reversed, the only thing between the power and ground is the forward biased diodes. Current could be 100 amps or more since resistance is essentially zero and nothing to limit it........the heat melts the junction into a short ckt. and the rectifier ceases to function. A spark, if enough voltage and current capacity can do it.

On the regulator charging both batteries together, it depends on temperatures, duration, and amount of current asked of the power supply. Temp is a killer and excessive charging increases the dissipation within the power supply which can. As I said earlier, you may have a unique situation with your liquid cooled setup whereby Brunswick wanted a charging system for bass boaters like in the tournament circuit where the ? loads would be excessive and would require a charger with suitable capacity for such.
 

tristanlee85

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
32
The good news is I installed the new regulator from CDI that I mentioned above. This one is not water cooled, but has a nice heatsink it is mounted to. It's rated at 40A. It would require a lot to pull 40A through that. Even my trolling motor doesn't go above 15. Once installed and I fired the engine up, immediately I was getting 13.8 - 14.5V at idle and above.

The oil module should be here tomorrow and hopefully that fixes the beeping.
 

tristanlee85

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
32
No dice on the new module. :( Still a solid beep when I turn the key on. I am not sure where else to look here. The last resort will be to just unplug it and read my gauge like I do anyway.
 

Dukedog

Captain
Joined
Oct 6, 2009
Messages
3,235
did you try it with tha purple from tha module disconnected?.. if not do so.. this will take tha module out of tha circuit... if you still get an alarm then disconnect tha tan/blue from tha sensor on tha starboard head.. do this at tha plastic term block on tha starboard side above tha switch boxes... if alarm goes away it shows sensor is bad... with this disconnected along with tha purple from tha module and you still get an alarm then its either tha buzzer itself or somewhere in tha boat side harness.............
 

tristanlee85

Seaman Apprentice
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
32
With the purple wire disconnected, the beeping goes away. If I disconnect either the tan wire from the module or the tan wire going to the harness (both connect to the sensor on that terminal), it goes away. Even with the tan wire disconnected, let's assume the sensor is bad (it can't be, it's a month out of the package). Even still, I would expect to get some type of beeping with the key on with the sensor disconnected. Maybe I am wrong.

I find it hard to believe that a brand new Quicksilver sensor is bad or that both modules I have are bad. The control box where the alarm is located is also brand new as of a couple months ago - new harness and everything.
 

Dukedog

Captain
Joined
Oct 6, 2009
Messages
3,235
if you disconnect tha purple feeding tha module and alarm goes away module is bad..... any oilier alarm circuit going thru tha module on tha tan module wire will oscillate, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep and not be a solid beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep if module is good... you may have something else that can't be found ona computer.... jus don't have any idea what it may be???

tha only thing beeping when key is turned on is a short self check "series" of beeps..... they come from tha module only!

any signal at all from tha module (through its tan wire) WILL BE OSCILLATING..... IF ITS GOOD.
 
Last edited:
Top