Short heats up control box cables and melts Wire in Force outboard Motor

BBQfish

Cadet
Joined
Mar 7, 2010
Messages
8
Ok, Needs some help on this one. While fishing today, (17ft Bass Tracker, Tournament V17 with Force 40hp) I must have recieved a short somewhere from my dual batterys that ran through my Merc control box through the control cables to the motor and started to melt some on the wires in the Outboard. I noticed the cables running from the control box to the motor (Cables for forward and reverse) were very hot to the touch, smoking and also noticed melted. As I took the outboard cover off, I saw smoke and notices the insulation on the wires have melted. When I tried to start the motor and put the motor in forward gear the throtle was stiff and would not work, noticed the cables were melted due to heat/short.

I can only assume some type of short from batter to ingition as all other electronics are on fuses. Can control box go bad or is there a short elsewhere????

Has anyone ever heard of this type of problem? If so solutions?

Also, can control box cables be replaced or do i need to replace the entire control box????

Any advise well appreciated.

BBQ FISH
 

Barnacle_Bill

Admiral
Joined
Feb 8, 2004
Messages
6,469
Re: Short heats up control box cables and melts Wire in Force outboard Motor

What are the batteries for? And why did you run them thru the remote?
 

BBQfish

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Joined
Mar 7, 2010
Messages
8
Re: Short heats up control box cables and melts Wire in Force outboard Motor

Bought the boat @ 4 yrs ago - used. Has A/B Battery switch, Batteries are for fish finder, lights, radio, and 2 anchor mates. There is a tilt switch the original owner installed on the same bracket/plate as the control box. Thinking there may be a short there as it's the only thing that is close to the control box.
 

Silvertip

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Sep 22, 2003
Messages
28,758
Re: Short heats up control box cables and melts Wire in Force outboard Motor

With a bunch of burned/melted wiring you now have a problem that we may be of little help in resolving. What started as one over-current condition due to a possible short, has resulted in what may be a bunch of shorted wires. You will need to sort this out by learning how your boat-side circuits are wired. The wiring that runs from the remote to the engine is the "Engine-side" circuits. You get that wiring diagram from the service manual for your engine. The boat is wired at the factory so Tracker would be the place to start but I'm guessing the boat did not come from the factory with the dual battery switch setup or the added trim switch.

What we can help with is to let you know that the dual batteries and the switch have only one connection to the engine (provided the switch is wired as it was intended). The big red battery cable running from the COM terminal on the switch goes to the engine starter solenoid. The Black battery cable runs from the NEGATIVE terminal on the batteries (yes -- both of them) to the engine block. For engine and control harness wiring to burn up there had to be a problem in the "engine" system. I would start by looking at the #12 gauge (approximate size) red wire that runs from the engine to the "B" (battery) terminal on the ignition switch. This wire is hot all the time and if it chaffed and contacted the metal sheath of either shifter/throttle cable it would heat those up. Although there should be an engine fuse (at the engine) that should have blown. But since the boat is not new to you, it is hard to tell what a prior owner may have done in there. You might check the engine where the positive battery cable enters the engine to see if it was being chaffed by the throttle, or shift linkage.

The long and short (no pun intended) is that you now need to verify the integrity of every circuit passing up the engine harness to the remote as well as every circuit at the engine. For the remote hardness you can disconnect the big plug at the engine and do continuity testing between those pins and the harness at the other end. For the engine, you need the wiring diagram and knowledge of how to use an ohm meter and how to isolate a circuit so you are not measuring parallel or series connected components.
 
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
2,906
Re: Short heats up control box cables and melts Wire in Force outboard Motor

If the shifter cables melted then the next question is what is the shift controller bolted to.
If the shifter is mounted on a conductive surface then check the negative cable on the motor as it may be using the shifter as a negative and a steel cable is real poor at conducting power and will get hot real quick where a copper wire will not even get warm.
If the shifter is isolated (bolted to fiberglass) you may have a problem in the shifter and its trying to short out and its using the shifter cables as a path back to the motor.
The shift cables can be replaced but like silver has already pointed out when wires smoke they like to burn up other wires so you will have to go over the whole boat.
 

NYBo

Admiral
Joined
Oct 23, 2008
Messages
7,107
Re: Short heats up control box cables and melts Wire in Force outboard Motor

The control cables should never be part of any electrical circuit. Something is really wrong here, and you may be better off starting from scratch.
 

BBQfish

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Joined
Mar 7, 2010
Messages
8
Re: Short heats up control box cables and melts Wire in Force outboard Motor

Taking pics this weekend of the wires, and motor and sharing with some locals to determine game plan. Appreciate the feedback, and will share my findings to help the next guy out. Keep the lines tight.
 

BBQfish

Cadet
Joined
Mar 7, 2010
Messages
8
Re: Short heats up control box cables and melts Wire in Force outboard Motor

Found multiple problems. Wiring instide of motor were worn and created my wire to arch and melt, Has wiring issues in battery area where prevous owner did some "creative wiring". replaced wires in motor, corrected battery area to spec, and replaced throttle cables. Running like a champ and ready for fall fishing.... Thanks for the guidence. Much appreciated. Keep the line tight.
 
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