[ScottyJGA]

Hi, folks. I'm new here.

I recently bought a boat that has a 1969 Mercury 500 "Thunderbolt" outboard, 50 horsepower. The serial number starts with "262" which is how I determined the model year.

It seems in decent shape except for the engine wiring. The wires from the rubber connector on the cowling that lead up to the solenoid, choke, starter, etc. are in bad shape. I found this out when the insulation flaked off the choke wire and it shorted to the solenoid, causing the choke to stay on all the time. Touching the wires causes more insulation to flake off, and the copper inside is apparently corroding away too.

It looks as though someone tried to repair this once before. There's electrical tape everywhere. I would just run new wires, but the connector seems to be a molded piece of rubber -- I can't access the pins to connect new wires.

It looks as though I need a new harness. I have done lots of web searches and I'm so far unable to find one. Does anyone have any ideas? If you've faced a similar situation, how did you solve the problem?

Scott

[mbnjagn]

Hi.

You need to check out this site.

www.cdielectronics.com

They have the harness.

[kingsnakejr]

Crowley Marine has it. $81

[ScottyJGA]

CDI doesn't appear to sell anything through their web site. They do list what looks like the right part (414-2770) but there's no way to buy it there.

Crowley Marine lists the part as NLA (No Longer Available.)

EDIT: Never mind ... looked more closely at the diagram on Crowley's site and the same callout for the harness is listed four times, and the fourth one actually seems to match the number on my existing harness (52770). So I ordered it. Thanks for the help!!!

[ScottyJGA]

Thanks for the assistance. Crowley was a bit dodgy with their shipping ... I gave them the right address in Google Checkout and they chose to use the credit card billing address instead ... but it all turned out well. I installed the harness Tuesday night and the engine fired right up.

I have a bit of a rough running problem and what might be a bad starter solenoid, but those are simpler issues to solve!