Electrical problem

[dkrider471]

Okay so for the past week i've been having a pain fixing my boat. I replaced the gimbal ring in it and decided to pull the motor completely out to replace it. While in there I did the Gimbal housing seal which was a pain and in the process cracked the ring. I replaced the ring with a new one, all new bellows, seals, you name it i pretty much replaced it. Anyhow back to my topic now we're having a problem with my switches that operate my lights, pump, and stereo. My question is did anyone ever hear of a batter causing all kinds of a electrical problems like this? We tested the battery and it seems to be fine, but i'm going to take it to the auto parts store and actually hook it up to a good tester. If not the battery can anyone suggest what could be wrong? I replaced my ignition as well, but everything seems to work fine. The starter and acc seem to be working in order we started the motor and everything seems to be fine, but the front bow light and the stereo and as we were trying to figure out what was wrong things just kept getting worst. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Randy J]

Re: Electrical problem

a wild hair guess did ya reconnect the ground to back side of engine block ? id check for that and look over for unconnected wiring

 

[Wes M.]

Re: Electrical problem

I just ran into the same thing and it was a loose ground wire.

 

[dkrider471]

Re: Electrical problem

Thats what I kind of figured was a loose ground somewhere. We looked over the whole motor and found no wires off so today i'm just going to redo all the grounds until it works. I got both my batteries tested today and both are good so i'll just have to keep looking. Thanks!

 

[dkrider471]

Re: Electrical problem

Ok guys I checked all my grounds and I still can't figure out whats going on here. What one was wrong on yours the battery ground running to the block or the other ones? Right now everything is working except for my front bow light. When I hit the switch the bilge light comes on just on my switch and everything currently running dies. To me this sounds like theres 2 grounds touching that shouldn't be touching? I have a bolt with about 10 grounds on it thats running everything right now and i'm pretty sure thats how it was before, but i'm not 100% sure on that. Any idea's?

 

[paultjohnson]

Re: Electrical problem

I think you should be ok with a a common ground. Technically is shouldnt matter if your accessory grounds are grounded to the block, bolt or batt, as long as they are all connected. I would think all your grounds [accessory] are run to a terminal block under the dash, perhaps with one main ground wire from there back to the batt. I have no idea how old your boat is though, who knows how it was wired originally. And then one heavy ground strap/wire from the batt to the block. Now if you have power supplies touching, or miss-connected.that gonna cause one accessory to turn on when you power up a different one.