I have a 1989 Wellcraft I/O powered by a 3.0 Mercruiser. I am having
intermittent electrical problems. Sometimes the motor doesn't crank,
and sometimes after it starts the tilt/trim control doesn't work. At
other times starter works fine as does tilt/trim (repeated efforts to
start ot raise/lower unit meet with success). I wonder about battery
cable connex and also a faulty voltage reg. Anyone have any other
ideas?

msd47

"msd47" wrote in message
ups.com...
I have a 1989 Wellcraft I/O powered by a 3.0 Mercruiser. I am having
intermittent electrical problems. Sometimes the motor doesn't crank,
and sometimes after it starts the tilt/trim control doesn't work. At
other times starter works fine as does tilt/trim (repeated efforts to
start ot raise/lower unit meet with success). I wonder about battery
cable connex and also a faulty voltage reg. Anyone have any other
ideas?

msd47

I wonder about the battery cable and connections also. ;-) You could also
have multiple solenoid problems.
Jim

I have an older boat also, 1990, and I have experienced various poor
connections. Anything that is just crimped on probably has developed
resistance. I have also found that even those multi-connect rubber
plugs can develop corrosion and resistance after a long time. At one
point I was getting about 8 volts at the hot wire to my ignition.
Testing with a voltmeter shows various small voltage drops at
connections. The external appearance of any connection is no
indication. Same for the battery terminals. You need to take it apart
and wire brush the metal where the two meet. I removed some
connections and simply soldered the wires together and covered them
with heat shrink. Others I cleaned. On wire connections to terminals
and bolts I added stainless steel inside star lock washers. These have
teeth inside the washer and the teeth bite into the lug. Particularly
where main power wires were.

msd47 wrote:
I have a 1989 Wellcraft I/O powered by a 3.0 Mercruiser. I am having
intermittent electrical problems. Sometimes the motor doesn't crank,
and sometimes after it starts the tilt/trim control doesn't work. At
other times starter works fine as does tilt/trim (repeated efforts to
start ot raise/lower unit meet with success). I wonder about battery
cable connex and also a faulty voltage reg. Anyone have any other
ideas?

msd47

On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 11:49:19 -0000, jamesgangnc
wrote:

I have an older boat also, 1990, and I have experienced various poor
connections. Anything that is just crimped on probably has developed
resistance.

All great ideas. I would add to that pay especial attention to grounds.
An experienced (auto--not boat) mechanic recently told me that, when he
had wiring problems it almost always included bad grounds. And most (not
all) of the wiring problems I've troubleshot on my little boat seem to end
up going back to bad grounds.

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I agree, grounds are often overlooked. And since a boat is mostly
plastic sometimes the return path is through a lot of ground
connections.

FWB wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jul 2006 11:49:19 -0000, jamesgangnc
wrote:

I have an older boat also, 1990, and I have experienced various poor
connections. Anything that is just crimped on probably has developed
resistance.

All great ideas. I would add to that pay especial attention to grounds.
An experienced (auto--not boat) mechanic recently told me that, when he
had wiring problems it almost always included bad grounds. And most (not
all) of the wiring problems I've troubleshot on my little boat seem to end
up going back to bad grounds.

--
Blogging from Pine View Farm--http://frankwbell.no-ip.info/weblog
Updates daily. Worthwhile updates occasionally.

fwb2355 is a spam trap. Email frankwbell at comcast.net

Slackware (http://www.slackware.com) and Opera (http://www.opera.com):
the ultimate internet experience.

msd47 wrote:
I have a 1989 Wellcraft I/O powered by a 3.0 Mercruiser. I am having
intermittent electrical problems. Sometimes the motor doesn't crank,
and sometimes after it starts the tilt/trim control doesn't work. At
other times starter works fine as does tilt/trim (repeated efforts to
start ot raise/lower unit meet with success). I wonder about battery
cable connex and also a faulty voltage reg. Anyone have any other
ideas?

msd47


You might try getting a fine small file, some sand paper. disconnect the
battery and just start going through all the connections cleaning any
corrosion that you might see. I had a grounding problem once that was do
to a bad contact. All sorts of strange things would happen from time to
time until I found it.

Capt Jack R..

Jack Redington wrote:
You might try getting a fine small file, some sand paper. disconnect the
battery and just start going through all the connections cleaning any
corrosion that you might see. I had a grounding problem once that was do
to a bad contact. All sorts of strange things would happen from time to
time until I found it.


Another thing that helps a lot is to seal all the
connections. A small dab of dielectric goop (Radio Shack
still sells it) will help make good contact, and help keep
the contacts from getting rusty or corroded again quickly.
The best way to seal them is to use heat-shrink tubing over
all wiring connections but sometimes that's not possible.

Fair Skies
Doug King