I would take the Volt meter and gap tester out on the water. When/if it happens again use them to rule out if this is spark or fuel related. Thinking with your other electrical stuff going on if you are getting a voltage loss leading to spark strength loss? Just swag from keyboard view ...I haven't got a tester so I will take it and have it tested. I followed a vidio on how to test with voltmeter and it shows up good
I now have 14.6 at battery with boat runningShould be 13+ V
Was the battery connected at the time?
The regulator is cycling trying to balance output with demand.
Bad alternator /voltage regulator
Battery shorted internally
Fairly large parasitic drain
Bad battery cable
Seems normal.is this off a handheld volt meter or dash volt meter.I now have 14.6 at battery with boat running
On my boat the ignition on circuit daisy chains from the switch through the gauges on its way back to the engine… dumb way to do it in my opinion. what you have found may be your issueThere was also a few loose connections back there
I have a 96 Four Winns with Ford 302.
When I bought the boat the owner sent me a video of how to start the engine, had to flick an accessories switch on the dash or it wouldn't crank. I thought someone had fitted an immobiliser but when I dug into it I found there was only 9v at the coil from the ignition key. The start solenoid also gets power from the dashboard and the 9v wasn't enough to energise the start solenoid... which is why it wouldn't crank unless the other accessory switch was flicked (someone had connected the accessory switch to bypass the ignition key, no immobiliser was fitted). I found the problem to be a voltage drop across the dead man switch so I bypassed the dead man switch and now it will start just on the key and there is 12V at the coil. Another win from fixing the voltage drop is that the alternator voltage sense wire is connected to the ignition on wire from the helm... Before I fixed the voltage drop the alternator was seeing battery voltage at 9V so was charging at it's full capacity all the time and overcharging the battery.
My gauges are car style and they were all broken when I bought the boat, it was as though they all read too high even with ignition off. I fixed the gauges by simply taking the needles off spindles and putting them back on in the correct position but I think the gauges will have been broken because at some time there was a bad earth to the helm, combined with that 3V voltage drop on the purple wire this could have seen all the gauges get -3V instead of +12V and spun the needles anticlockwise on the spindles. Or someone connected a battery wrong polarity but I would expect that to break the electronic ignition too (which it might have done but my distributor etc look original).
So when this occurs do you have strong enough spark on a gap tester. Need to figure out if this is spark or fuel related.I went out yesterday and this problem is still going on. Revs up fine in neutral but under load no way...I fished for a couple hours and had to go back to doc just idling...
It's not supposed to. The idea is that when cranking, battery voltage is going to be low, so the ballast wire/resistor needs to be bypassed (provide full battery voltage to coil) so the coil has enough juice to fire. When not cranking, it's open, allowing the ballast wire/resistor to modulate coil power so ignition doesn't burn itself down at 14V.I terminal on 4 post starter soliniod has no power with key on or started.
I didn't bother with the I terminal since on Pertronix there's no need for a ballast wire and my ignition switch energizes "RUN" during start (not to mention my starter circuit is completely different from stock). If your ignition switch doesn't energize "RUN" in "START", then you will need the I terminal wire to power the ignition during start.So here's what I'm dealing with...pertronix ignition...flamethrower coil 0.6 ohm..and 4 post starter soliniod.. I have white wire hooked to positive coil and dizzy pos...and I terminal pos on coil...brown and coil black to negative...is this correct
Can you suggest a decent spark plug tester and I will order it and give it a shot