80 Horse Mercury

[brokeboat]

1988 80 mer. has no spark at plugs,also both sides of coil connections show 12 ground.

 

[12Footer]

Re: 80 Horse Mercury

Coils usually fail one ata time. I would suspect the kill switch or ignition switch is shorted to ground thru the orange wire. If you have a place by the engine where you can disconnect this wire, try it,and see if it'll fire with it loose. But you wont be able to stop the engine,unless you can re-attach it after the test.

 

[brokeboat]

Re: 80 Horse Mercury

Next problem with 80 Merc. NO orange wire anywhere in wire harness on motor.

 

[12Footer]

Re: 80 Horse Mercury

Oooopth!! It's a 1988. sorry. On serial number5582562 and above models, this wire would be the Black/yellow.<br /><br />The best place to remove the wire is at the switchbox. This will eliminate all the wiring ,and funky mercury switches.<br />If it runs, you will need to backtrack thru the wire harness, checking switchies and wire for a path to ground. Once you remove the path to ground, it will run. If it does not have fire after you remove the wire from the switchbox, the switchbox or stator are the next things to look at....So let us know if it still won't go.

 

[brokeboat]

Re: 80 Horse Mercury

Hey 12Footer I found the problem,the + wires that go to the coils were corroded under the protective rubber caps. Cleaned them off and put terminal coating on them and it runs like a champ. It was your suggestion about the ground switch that got me tracing wires and pulling connections until multimeter readings changed. Thats alot.