inexperienced boater needs help!

[Tyler's]

i have a few different questions so i guess instead of spamming threads i'll just ask them all here. about a year ago i inhereted a decent amount of money and thought it would be a great idea to buy a boat. and it was. except when things go wrong and i have no idea how to fix them. just about all i know how to do is put it in the water, and turn it on. so. the last time we had the boat out one of the fuses on my suv popped, hence no trailer lights. now one side of the trailer lights work, and the other doesn't. i was thinking it might be a wiring issue due to the blown fuse. i was thinking new light bulb? maybe bad ground? i checked the trailer and couldn't find one anywhere. the 4 prong plug wiring looks pretty sketchy too.
does my trailer need to have its own ground? how do i do that?
is there any type of regular maintnance i need to keep up with?
when am i supposed to use the bilge pump?
and finally the guy i bought it from didn't have the manual but he said he had been mixing in the tank. i know mixing in the tank is bad for some engines but is pre-mixing ever a bad thing? and for that matter just to make sure its 25:1? my boat is a 1984 16' starcraft with a 90hp mercury outboard.
i've only had it out a few times and it needs to get used!!! it just sits in my driveway thanks to everyone with helpful input!

 

[Titanium48]

Re: inexperienced boater needs help!

If your engine has a working oil injection system and a full oil tank you will have too much oil if you premix in the tank. However, keep premixing unless you KNOW you have a working oil injection system - too much oil can lead to plug fouling and carbon buildup in your engine, but running with no oil will cause rapid catastrophic failure due to lack of lubrication. Use a 50:1 fuelil ratio though, 25:1 is too much oil for just about any outboard built after the mid-1960s.

As for your wiring issues, these can be very tricky to diagnose over the internet, but poor ground is a common problem. Many people run ground wires from the lights back to the connector.

 

[Utahboatnut]

Re: inexperienced boater needs help!

Agree with above 25:1 is too rich on the oil side esp if the oil injection(if equipped) is also working. I had a 84 wellcraft with a 200 horse evinrude, no oil injection so I pre mixed everything. It was 50:1 and I believe your merc is the same. I could run at 4800 rpms for as many miles as the tank would go and it was getting plenty of lubrication at 50:1. If you premix and it has working injection I'm surprised you arent fouling plugs going through wakeless zones, at idle etc. I know alot of people do mix in the tank I never did but tons of people do with no issues. just need to keep a very good track of how much fuel is being added, how much is already in there, how much oil per gallon is needed, etc. Main reason I premixed was to assure I never was in a hurry to get onto the lake and screwed up my math with the oil. I had a mix master container that I would use for the oil and have it already in the 5 gal cans so I could fill cans and know all was good. then just dump the cans in. Premixing is never a bad thing in my opinion unless the oil injection is working and you trust it with your engines life. Thats the first thing I used to do to all of my snowmobiles was disable the injection system and just run premix. The elec problem could be a number of things a test light (5-10 bucks) is your best friend when trying to diagnose elec. problems start with your suv connector make sure everything is good there then work your way back. Its only really three wires 1 running(supplies both sides) 2 left stop/turn supplies left bright filiment only 3 right stop/turn supplies right bright filiment only. Depending on how the ground is set up it can add a fourth or not if the lights are grounded through the trailer. I always unplug my lights prior to backing into the water just to safeguard against a short and thus a blown fuse(could be as simple as that) and make sure your housings are sealed well or they can fill up and cause a short or a ton of rust and corrosion problems. Good luck...

 

[can-amsledder]

Re: inexperienced boater needs help!

You didn?t say which lights aren?t working on the trailer, running lights or brake/turn signals. My guess is that you have a pinched wire and not the ground. Either the brown for running light or yellow/yellow with stripe for brake/turn. A pinched wire would cause a fuse to blow!

 

[security6]

Re: inexperienced boater needs help!

If the wiring on your trailer looks sketchy, you might consider just rewiring the whole trailer. This will save you time trying to trace wires and figure out where a wire is getting pinched. You can buy a new rewiring kit for less than $20. Rewiring a trailer is usually easy to do because the wiring is fairly exposed, not hidden like on a car.

 

[sethjon]

Re: inexperienced boater needs help!

90% of the time light failure is due to a bad ground. It can be the individual light due to water getting inside and then corrosion causing a poor ground or it could be the ground wire itself. That means the ground wire between the 2 lights that don't work may have a bad conncetion.

 

[Wingedwheel]

Re: inexperienced boater needs help!

Typically on a flat connector you wires are as follows. White(ground) Green(right stop/turn) Green/brown(right running light) Yellow(left stop/turn)Yellow/brown(left running light) hope that helps.