My Merc power cable looks bad, want your opinion

[hotrod53]

My red power cable looks bad and probably should be replaced. I think that the cable may have laid in the water before I started to restore the boat. The insulation is bleached out almost white and some of it is coming off. It may be good under the sheath that houses all of the cables. It looks like goes right into the plug that hooks to the outboard and the plug appeard to be molded. I looked on Ebay but didn't see any replacements.

I have some 3M rubber vulcanizing tape that may fix it, but it may not be the best choice...your opinion?

 

[usskydvr]

Re: My Merc power cable looks bad, want your opinion

You could wrap it with that tape or a GOOD brand of electrical tape, it should be fine.

 

[emckelvy]

Re: My Merc power cable looks bad, want your opinion

If you peel back the insulation and see a bunch of nasty, green, deteriorated wire, that's not so good. You may be able to cut the wiring back to the point of good, solid material and splice in a new section with a crimp connector. Better yet would be to solder the splice for a good electrical connection, but you'd of course need a big soldering iron!

If you see fairly clean copper, I'd do as the O.P. said and wrap with electrical tape. Then paint it with some of that "liquid electrical tape" in a can, to seal it off. For cosmetics, you could slip some red shrink sleeving over the wire and shrink that down using a heat gun, torch or even a cigarette lighter. It'll look better and provide some abrasion protection.

HTH............ed