Complete electrical short - help!!!

[Darkhorse1201]

I have a 1992 Sunbird with a 4.3 OMC motor. Runs great til the other day - I switched on the blower motor and the motor did not work and all the guages flew to max position. I turned off blower switch and all gauges return to normal. The same applies to any dash switch or even radio. Motor will not trun over unless I put a screw driver across solinoid terminal. When I disconnect battery and put multi meter on it ( neg on ground) and touch positve test lead to any positive terminal on motor (using ihm metter0 I get a circuit. I have check every circuit and cannot find any chafed or grounded positive wire but obviously there is power going thru the ground circuit but noy enough to trip a fuse or fry a wire. Any ideas on where to look for this puzziling problem? Thank

 

[wire2]

Re: Complete electrical short - help!!!

I don't think you have a dead short. That would definitely trip a breaker/fuse or turn a smaller wire red hot.

Instead, I think you have a poor ground connection somewhere between the battery and the common ground of your dash switches and gauges.

Take a length of wire from the batt - to the dash - and try it.

 

[atthelastminute]

Re: Complete electrical short - help!!!

I won't claim to know for sure what the problem is, but I recently had the same or a similar problem. While trying to figure it out I discovered my resitance wire to the coil had gone bad. I replaced the wire, reconnected all of my gauges and everything worked and continues to work after two days on the boat this weekend. Test the resistance from the coil to the ignition pin on the engine harness, it should be in the range of 1.8-2.0, mine was 1.2. I can't say for sure that it was my problem, but everything was fixed once the new wire was on.

Steven

 

[95yj]

Re: Complete electrical short - help!!!

Bad connection to the coil wouldn't affect all powered devices in the boat. Take the route that Wire2 is suggesting. You have voltage but are not able to draw enough amps to actually run anything. Start with checking the grounds. You can even run a straight ground from the battery to the minus of any device and then power it on to see if it works.