Re: 1958 evinrude 50 hp starflite no spark
ok so I wanted to make sure that the primary wire from the magneto was not running power to the coil. so I removed it, and put a test light to it, while cranking. it has power to it while cranking. Which is to be expected cause it is hooked up to the ignition switch under the bolt that says ignition. (is this right?) But to my surprise while I was testing this wire, the ground wire that runs from the ingition switch (center bolt) to the power head bolt started smoking and before I could get the battery disconnected this black wire thoroughly melted and nearly started on fire. So now I am convinced that I have or had something hooked up wrong.
My starter switch is not original and has the following 4 bolts. it is shaped in a triangle with three bolts on the outside and one bolt right in the middle. the 3 outer bolts are labeled as follows. Batt, Ignit, and Acc. The bolt right in the middle is unlabeled but I assumed it was ground. I have one white wire that runs from the starter solenoid to the Ignition bolt on starter switch. I have a green wire that runs from the battery to the switch place and then is split between the choke switch and the battery bolt on starter switch. Then I have a black wire that is grounded on the power head bolt and runs through the junction box and connects to the starter switch center bolt. this was the wire that melted right before my eyes. The 4th wire runs from the ignition bolt to the magneto. This was the wire that was disconnected and being tested while ground wire melted.
So what did I do wrong? or maybe better what didn't I do wrong. lol. To clarify, two wires were hooked up to the ignition bolt on the starter switch. one white wire that ran to the starter solenoid, and the other wire ran to the magneto. (until I disconnected it to test it.) I have the feeling this was incorrect.
So I might have to retract my statement from the previous notes above about not feeding power into my magneto. I was feeding power into the primary lead on the magneto from the ignition switch (ingition bolt that was shared with the wire that ran to the starter solenoid.) Did I burn up the magneto? Do i have the right kind of starter switch and if so how do I hook it up correctly. Any other obvious errors that you can see?