Volvo Penta

I have a Volvo Penta 4 cyl. 130 HP in a Four Winns 170. The engine quit while crusing about half throttle, it back fired and then stopped running. The starting circut was dead. I found a 20 amp fuse blown and replaced it the engine started and ran at an idle for about 15 min. When I went out on the river and throttled up it quit again. Replace fuse again the same thing happened. I have the boat at home on the trailer I have a 7.5 amp fuse in the circut and it will not blow. Please any ideas

Re: Volvo Penta

Sounds like you have a wire some place that might be touching groung while the boat is moving or have a lose wire some place. Try tracing that fuse wire looking for any damage and leave the key on engine off and wiggle wires around till you blow a good fues and you might get lucky and that might put you in the area of the damaged Or lose wire.

Or you could have a bad "part" that is putting to much of a load on that fuse.

Re: Volvo Penta

If your boat is dying, and blowing out the starter fuse, you have one problem causing the other. The starting circuit is separate from the ignition circuit.
What I am saying is, blowing the starter circuit fuse wont cause the engine to die if they are wired correctly.
Are you sure the you are not confusing the "starting circuit" with the Ignition switch circuit?
The Ign. switch should have up to a 30 amp fuse on it depending on how many things are powered thru the key switch.
When the fuse blows, do the gauges also quit?
Have you added any new componets to the boat?
How long does the fuse last when the boat is in the water running?
Have you matched the conditions out of the water? (time, rpms, etc.)

Re: Volvo Penta

Volvo used a fuse block on the 130's back just above the starter. (Item 33 in the pick below) that had 4 fuse connections in it. If you have a single fuse, it may have been replaced at some point.
Although it was located near the starter, it was the main power wire going to the ignition switch and instrument panel.
Here is a link to the OEM service manual. Page 41 has the wiring diagram for you.
http://www.4shared.com/file/59747156/6c065c44/AQ130_thru_170_Serv_Man.html

As havasu mentioned, if you have too many other things attached to the power (Stereo's and amps, fish finders, etc.) you could be overloading the system.
If that is the case, you need to do some rewiring to get more power to the helm.
If you weren't running anything else, I would start it up on muffs and start doing some wiggle tests of the wiring system, from the engine to the helm, move everything to see if it blows the fuse.