need help with a 1989 model 1950 with I/O motor

[bigrobandjane]

JUST bought a 1989 Spectrum model 1950 with the 4 cyl I/O motor & issues are popping up !

-when I first bought it, we took it out for a test drive and the battery had to be jump started as it had sat all winter.
We hooked it to a jumper box and had it running on a hose with ears & it fired right up and ran GREAT !

When we put it in the water a 1/2 hour later, Again it fired right up with the jumper box But when we tilted the outdrive down it killed the motor and the jumper box was Too low to jump it again. We jumped it with jumper cables and it fired right up, but we did Not take it out because the battery was too low and the jumper box was dead !

We took it back and they put a small car style battery in it and again we did the same thing ......hooked it to a hose and it fired right up.........put it in the water and it fired right up........we drove it up and dow the river for about 45 mins with no issues and then took it home.

the next Day we took it off the trailer at the dock and no power, I checked the connections and they seemed quite loose , so i moved the terminals around and they must have made contact and it fired right up (with the new Smaller car style battery) and we ran it at the lake for 2-3 hours Straight with no issues.

When we got back to the dock , it would Not re-start to load it onto the trailer .........I again messed with the loose terminals but with no luck this time. When we got back to the house , I tried it again and again it fired right up with no issues. I tried this repeated time and there were NO problems after we got it home !

I tried it several times the Next day before we took it out with the small battery and again no issues, fired right up (with the small battery) .........we had just bought a new Deep cycle Battery so we went ahead and replaced the Small car style battery it had in it ....After we hooked it up, it fired right up and ran like a dream at the house with a hose on it !
I even tried shutting it off and starting it Several times with No issues......we took it to the lake again which is about 45 mins away and launced it and It fired right up. NO ISSUES............ran it for about 15 mins across the lake and shut it off and was going to set anchor, but we decided to move further down the lake and we tried to start it LESS than 2 mins after we shut it off and Nothing , No power..........nothing !

The radio is dead......guages dead..........nothing, BUT the outdrive would trim up & down but NOTHING else has power !!!!


any ideas..........

 

[bigrobandjane]

Re: need help with a 1989 model 1950 with I/O motor

There are four 50 Amp fuses back in the engine area & one of them was the culprit of my problem.

One of these 50 Amp fuses had come apart Inside the rubber boots and were not making contact at certain times. These fuses have a clear tube with metal ends and a metal piece inside the fuse, and the end caps had come off and were stuck in the boots and this enabled the metal piece Inside the boat to make contact at certain times and then when moved / bounced around on the trailer or bouncing on the water it would or would Not make contact. Once we replaced this $1.59 fuse we were good to go and still have had No issues since !!!

I Did have to call 5-6 different places Before I found a replacement fuse, But I finally found a NAPA store that had a Box of 10 available, so you can bet I bought extras as they told me this fuse was Not one they normally stocked !


We found this issue in LESS than 15 min with nothing more than a Cheap testlight , and needless to say I have one in my tool kit on the boat as well as a few normal fuses and a few spare 50 amp fuses just in case !


The confusing part to this situation was that I Never lost power to the outdrive durin this situation, but everything else was dead !