How tuff are Force outboards?

Here's one for the books! While out riding on a rough day I forgot to secure an ammo can of tools, the can landed across the battery post, both of them, the wind was blowing to the stern of the boat so I didn't notice anythng. Couple minutes later I glanced back and saw the can on top of the battery, some smoke and fire. Put it out with a diet drink I had in my hand. Stood there in awe of how stupid leaveing the can unsecured had been.
Brand new battery bye,bye. Shut the engine down and began to assess the situation. Had burnt one battery cable clean into,burnt a hole through the top of the new battery, and the ammo can was welded to the battery post, don't know why it didn't blow the battery. Anyhow thought that was it, there I was 20 mile an hour winds and an under powered trolling motor. Dugg through my extra parts, hooked up the spare battery gave it try and it started, I didn't think it would. The only part that I could identify that seemed to be damaged was the rectifier, the battery would no longer charge and still doesn't. The rectifier had just been replaced new prior to this and seemed to be charging the battery fine. Also the backup battery is in good condition. Takes a charge on the charger fine. So I beleive a new rectifier will take care of it or did I get that lucky?

Now to my question. Why did it not burn through the whole electrical system? Haven't replaced the rectifier yet I just keep the battery charged for now. Motor runs as always did. Just doesn't charge. Had to have shot some juice through the system for it to burn a hole through the battery top, weld the can to the posts and burn the cable into don't you think?

Re: How tuff are Force outboards?

Force engines before say '92 used separate windings in the stator to charge the battery and to power the ignition. Thus unless you melt all the windings, the engine will still start and run. Matter of fact, because of the ignition system, these engines will pull start and run with the cable and ignition switch completely disconnected. Unless you short white to blue, the engine will continue to run.

Maybe in your case, Murphy's law will not apply and the relatively cheap rectifier blew, protecting the relatively expensive stator. Buy a new rectifier, and if it charges, you're gold.

Re: How tuff are Force outboards?

And buy a battery box!!!!

Re: How tuff are Force outboards?

Stanley1 said:

And buy a battery box!!!!

Click to expand...

And make sure this one comes with THE TOP PART!

Re: How tuff are Force outboards?

Yeah! Guess that's what I get for trying to get out on the cheap huh?

Re: How tuff are Force outboards?

Why do we claim it's too expensive to do it right the first time, but not too expensive to do it the second time ... ?

Re: How tuff are Force outboards?

The reason why nothing else blow was because the ammo box took the load, the rest of the system would have just seen a voltage drop. The battery cable was burnt because of the heat generated by lots of amps flowing though the terminal it was attached to, and the top of the battery was melted for the same reason. The heat generated is equal to the voltage times the current. A good battery can push anything up to 1000amps. So you had a heater of around 12Kilowatts!!! The average kitchen kettle is about 1.6kilowatts. No wonder things got a bit warm

As someone already said, the charging circuit and the rest of the engine are isolated. The stator would not have been damaged because they are inherently current self-limiting. The rectifier probably blow because of a current spike. If you don't want to pay the exorbitant price Merc want for a genuine rectifier, go to your local Radio Shack store and buy a bridge rectifier, they are rated at 35amps. They are only a few dollars and have a far higher rating than the genuine item anyway. The stators on those engines only put out about 6 amps.

Cheers and good luck,

Chris............

P.S. this is a web page of the item in question to show you what your looking for.
"http://www.dse.com.au/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/475161570aed06962740c0a87f9c06c0/Product/View/Z3336