Help with my electrical system!!

[iggyw1]

I had my boat running real good but had two bad batteries in it, so I decided to change batteries. I took all of the wires off of the batteries (had a lot of wires on both batteries from fish finders, bilge pumps, lights, radio etc.) and I had a switch in line to go to battery #1, #2 or both at once. After I got my new batteries in place, I get everything working (lights, radio, bilge pump, fish finders, etc.) but when I turn my key absolutely nothing on the motor. Cannot raise or lower it either.) I have some of the wires crossed somewhere.

Now I removed the switch and all of the wires from both batteries, trying my best to just hook up the motor directly to one of my batteries. All I see coming out of the motor is a red wire and a black wire. On the switch, there were three red wires that went onto the "common" electric connector. What do I need to connect now to my battery to get the electric to the motor? Do I need just the black and red wire, or do I need other wires connected as well? The red wires going to the "common" on the switch, to of them have a fuse in them, one of those two has two fuses in the same holder. I connected these red wires from the switch "common" to the negative post on the battery. The red from the motor on red, and the black from the motor to positive on the battery. Cannot get anything when i turn on the key. What am I doing wrong?? Thanks.

 

[km1125]

The red wire from the engine should go to the COMMON on the switch. The "1" or "2" post on the switch should go to the POSITIVE post on the respective "1" or "2" battery, using a red wire. The other RED wires with fuses in them can also be connected to the COMMON, but there's a good chance at least one of them is for the automatic bilge pump and should be connected to post 1 or post 2 so that it always has some power regardless which position the switch is in.

The BLACK wire from the engine should go to the NEGATIVE on the battery, and both battery NEGATIVE posts should be connected to each other with a BLACK wire. I REALLY recommend getting a buss bar for the NEGATIVE connections and connecting each wire to it... one from the engine, one from the negative post from each battery and one from the boat's electrical system (negative side). This eliminates more than one connection on each battery and makes for better connections.

 

[roscoe]

Way too many wires connected to the batteries.
1 cable from battery pos to the battery switch.
1 wire from battery pos to the bilge pump if set up with an automatic float switch.
Everything else should be powered by a pos wire from the battery switch to the fuse panel, then to individual accessory.

Battery neg should have 1 cable from motor, and 1 or 2 wires from negative buss bar.