1984 Johnson 115 hp charging problem.

Ok, here is the problem. Here I am running across the lake at 5400 RPMs, the engine lost all fire without hesitation. Tried to restart the engine, now a perfectly new battery was so dead that the starter would barely click. With this in mind, I disconnected all wires to charging circuit. Used trolling battery to restart engine. Ran fine. Since this day, I have been running with the rect/reg disconnected completely. engine has been running fine. Just have to remember to charge the start battery after each run. Now I have attempted to reconnect the rect/reg, and now I have noticed the Tach does not work. Possible bad tach or reg. I have also noticed that I am not getting any ac voltage from the tach wire. Tried moving the tach wire to one leg of the stator wires. Yellow or yellow/gray, tach still inop. Now I have the rect/reg disconnected again. Checked for vac on the yellow and yellow/gray wire of the stator, and it reads .70 at all rpms on both wires. Can someone tell me how to determine what the cause of this problem is before I dump hundreds of dollars out in electronic parts.

Re: 1984 Johnson 115 hp charging problem.

The tachometer operates off of the charging system. It appears that your Voltage Regulator/Rectifier is faulty, hence the dead battery and no tachometer.<br /><br />Running with the Voltage Regulator/Rectifier disconnected results in the AC voltage being produced by the stator (under the flywheel) having no way to obtain access to the battery (charging circut). This in turn creates a extreme amount of heat build up at the stator which will absolutely destroy that stator!<br /><br />Bottom line..... replace the Voltage Regulator/Rectifier assy. Yes, it's expensive but there are no short cuts. Patch work in the long run is much more expensive.

Re: 1984 Johnson 115 hp charging problem.

Joe, I do appreciate yourinput on this problem, but I have come to the conclusion the I am a total idiot. Just so happens, I had the meter on the wrong settings when I too the readings. Sad thing, I am an electronics tech. So sad. So here are the revised readings although I think your recommendation is going to be the same. @ Idle, getting 7-10 vac on the yellow and yellow/gray wire from stator. @ Idle, getting 3.7 vac on gray wire coming out of rect/reg. @ rpms above idle, gray wire voltage is dropping below 3 vac. Getting 4.6 amps DC out of the rect/reg going to the battery at all power settings. When ever I turn on the key switch, the tach does go to zero like it supposed too. but when running it does not indicate rpm. Now on that not, I have an old medallion tach with a rotary switch on the back numbered 1-4, can you tell me what this is supposed to be set on for this engine.