Loss of lights, horn, bilge pump, blower ?

[Jim Robbins]

1973 Starcraft 18' Holiday, 140 I/O, I bought this boat 6 weeks ago, so I'm working out the bugs. I did have the nav. lights, horn, blower & bilge pump working fine. Been on the water 7 - 8 trips, one night I pull on the lights Nothing
No lights,horn,pump,blower I guess they are all together, so with a flashlight I look into the birds nest of wires and find a fuse holder and it has a blown 20 amp. fuse, I replaced and all is working. Two trips later the fuse blows again, I put in a new one and it works for a while,
*then out go the lights and everything is not working
BUT the 20 amp fuse is good( I try a 2nd fuse/ nothing) ? There have been a lot of mods over the years, and I have to remove wires that are not in use anymore (remove the birds nest)
Where do I start, any advise? Should there be 4
seperate lines?
Do these accs. hook up to the same spot as the motor starting wires? thanks

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Loss of lights, horn, bilge pump, blower ?

Since we have no idea what modifications have been made over the life of the boat it's hard to tell where to look. But, in order for anything to work, a wire must feed current from the positive post of the battery to the fuse, then the switch, out the switch to the device, then back to the battery via the ground wire. Siince everything quits and only one fuse is used, concentrate on the main +12 volt feed to all of these items. If it was a bad ground, only one of the items would likely fail unless they were all grounded at the same spot.

 

[john from md]

Re: Loss of lights, horn, bilge pump, blower ?

Since you have a rats nest of wires, perhaps it would be better if you rewired your boat. The circuits that you mention are all easy to do. Do you have a buss bar under your dash for positive and negative wires? If so, just rewire each circuit to the buss.

John

 

[Jim Robbins]

Re: Loss of lights, horn, bilge pump, blower ?

I removed the birds nest and wires that were not being used. Taped the rest of the wires every foot. Replaced the fuse that was burnt (not in the center, but down in the bottom, this fuse looked fine) I have not seen this. All is working fine! Now I move on to the oil leak I found in the line for the tilt - trim pump. Oh what fun...
Thanks for your help. Jim