Thanks in advance to anyone that reads this, I've been a pretty avid browser of the forums for the past few months but I am now having some difficulty where I can't find answers.
(Long story)
My dad and my brothers and I have been pretty avid boaters since we were young. Last year, however, my dad passed away. My brothers and I are in the process of getting our boat in the water for the summer, but my father had usually been the one doing all the spring time preparations and maintenance as he was retired and spent most of the time up at the lake as soon as weather permitted. That means while my brothers and I know a lot about taking care of our boat (and what we didn't know we have filled in a lot with help from this website), there are somethings we are still learning).
(Cut to the chase)
When he died, friends at our marina did a lot of the work of winterizing our boat since we are all at least 3 hours from Lake Erie. One of my father's friends unhooked and took home the batteries. While that was helpful, no one seems to remember exactly how they were hooked up in the first place. We have them properly connected to the rest of the boat, as our bilge pump/horn/lights/blower etc work fine, our engine turns over etc]. However, the two problems we still have are:
1. We cannot raise or lower the outdrive
2. We cannot get our GPS/Radio/Depth Finder to power up
We figure it has to with the two sets of stray wires, one which I am fairly positive is a ground and a set of 3 wires. My brother and I are fairly smart and have had no trouble whatsoever until now, but I figured it would be better to ask for some advice before we tried anything.
I took some pictures in the hope this would explain more:
Feel free to treat me with kid gloves and talk to me in complete layman's terms, I'm not too proud. If this is too risky to try to on our own, don't be afraid to tell me. We can always get a mechanic out here, but it seems like such a small, simple problem and we get a small measure of joy thinking our dad would be proud of us for doing it our own. However, he'd also get angry if we fried any of his gear
Thanks again!
(Long story)
My dad and my brothers and I have been pretty avid boaters since we were young. Last year, however, my dad passed away. My brothers and I are in the process of getting our boat in the water for the summer, but my father had usually been the one doing all the spring time preparations and maintenance as he was retired and spent most of the time up at the lake as soon as weather permitted. That means while my brothers and I know a lot about taking care of our boat (and what we didn't know we have filled in a lot with help from this website), there are somethings we are still learning).
(Cut to the chase)
When he died, friends at our marina did a lot of the work of winterizing our boat since we are all at least 3 hours from Lake Erie. One of my father's friends unhooked and took home the batteries. While that was helpful, no one seems to remember exactly how they were hooked up in the first place. We have them properly connected to the rest of the boat, as our bilge pump/horn/lights/blower etc work fine, our engine turns over etc]. However, the two problems we still have are:
1. We cannot raise or lower the outdrive
2. We cannot get our GPS/Radio/Depth Finder to power up
We figure it has to with the two sets of stray wires, one which I am fairly positive is a ground and a set of 3 wires. My brother and I are fairly smart and have had no trouble whatsoever until now, but I figured it would be better to ask for some advice before we tried anything.
I took some pictures in the hope this would explain more:
Feel free to treat me with kid gloves and talk to me in complete layman's terms, I'm not too proud. If this is too risky to try to on our own, don't be afraid to tell me. We can always get a mechanic out here, but it seems like such a small, simple problem and we get a small measure of joy thinking our dad would be proud of us for doing it our own. However, he'd also get angry if we fried any of his gear
Thanks again!
