Hooked up battery backward, 1985 Bayliner with a 85hp Force (Now no spark)

Jiggz

Captain
Joined
Oct 23, 2009
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3,909
Re: Hooked up battery backward, 1985 Bayliner with a 85hp Force (Now no spark)

The keyword is the wire color coding "Yellow" and "Blue" . Other newer models came with solid yellow and solid blue while the older models came with stripe color codes of Brown-Yellow and Brown-Blue. Note the Yellow and Blue are still around.

In the paper that came with the stator, it indicates the Brown-Blue wire tied together and connected to the terminal board only to the #1-#2 CD Module (the numbers are the cylinder number it feeds or connects to). However, it also shows this specific terminal is NC (normally closed or connected to the bus of the terminal board). Meaning if you read continuity between the #4 terminal (where the brn-blu wire is connected) and #2 terminal of the terminal board there should be continuity.

The connections of the brown-yellow wires with the CD modules is interchangeable because all the stator does is to provide constant AC voltage to the modules. But for clarification if the wires are labeled just follow the numbering in the diagram.

Another option if you are in doubt, if there are four wires (6 wires including the rectifier wires) coming out of the stator, just connect them individually, i. e., Brown-Yellow #4 wire to #3 CD Module Brown-Yellow wire and then Brown-Yellow wire #2 to #1 & #2 CD Module Brown-Yellow wire.

And you can do the same with the brown-blue wires (as shown in the stator drawing). Connecting the brown-blue wires individually with the brown-blue wires of the CD modules will not make a difference.

As for the rectifier, you can connect either way. The only thing to look for is the tach meter wire (I believe its gray) which sometimes needs to be oriented to one of the wires depending on your rectifier type. Goodluck.
 
Joined
May 21, 2012
Messages
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Re: Hooked up battery backward, 1985 Bayliner with a 85hp Force (Now no spark)

So i found the exact paper that was sent to me with the stator online in a .pdf format from CDI you can see it here: http://cdielectronics.com/InstallSheet/176-5095.pdf

On my boat none of these wires go to a terminal board. It is an old boat so i am sure these parts have been replaced before. But the wires connect directly from the stator to the CD boxes. Is this Bad? Will it fry somthing. Also The wires that are not used (don't go to anything) are just taped off. Is this bad?

The boat was running before i hooked the battery terminals backwards.

Also what can i do to prevent this from happening again if the terminal are crossed again. I don't plan on doing it but you never know. Can i put an inline fuse somewhere? Where should i place it and what size should it be?

Thanks.
 
Joined
May 21, 2012
Messages
23
Re: Hooked up battery backward, 1985 Bayliner with a 85hp Force (Now no spark)

So i installed the new Stator and everything is working great now. It starts right up with no hesitation. I plan on taking the boat out on the water this weekend. It will be my first time taking it out. I hope everything goes well.

The only issue i had was, when hooking up the blue/brown and Yellow/Brown wires, the installation paper and CDI electronics ignition manual show that the two blue/brown wires coming from the stator hook together and then run to only one of the CD boxes (box#1). However when it is hook up like the diagram it will not fire on all cylinders so we hooked both brown/blue wires together, then ran them to both the cd boxes. Every thing seems to run ok in my driveway, so we will see once it is on the water.

Thanks everyone for your help in diagnosing the issue.

Does anyone have an comment on how to prevent the reverse polarity in the future? Other then just not hooking the battery terminals backwards agian. Like an In-line fuse? Where? What size?

Thanks.
 

Jiggz

Captain
Joined
Oct 23, 2009
Messages
3,909
Re: Hooked up battery backward, 1985 Bayliner with a 85hp Force (Now no spark)

Congrats for having her run finally. As for your last question, there are a few steps you can take to prevent inadvertently connecting a battery backwards but not fool proof. Use color coded battery terminal connectors, attached a warning tag, buy a battery will different sized terminal posts with corresponding different sized terminal connector. But the bottom line it's up to the person to heed all these warning steps but does not necessarily stop one from doing so.
 
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