Electric shock issue.
 

Gentlemen,

My 87' 175 Johnson is providing a nice shock when my hands are damp on my stainless steering wheel. Obviously a short somewhere. Any feedback on what may be causing the problem? She was cutting out a little last time out and the carbs have recently been redone so I'm leaning toward electrical. I haven't run her at night yet to check fo a arc. The neighbors will love that :)

TIA,

Maury

You might wanna leave all hatch covers, doors etc open till you find the short..if it arcs in and area that has the possibility of collecting gas fumes it could become a bigger issue pretty quickly...unlikely, but still...

pull the cowl off the motor and run it as you suggest at night, then trace to the battery....if not found by then, start tracing to the dash...good luck and let us know...

check to see if a chaffed/bare wire is laying against the steering assembly.

does it only do it while the engine is running?

yep, only when running.

its probably something to do with the tach wire or the kill switch, disconnect the gray wire at the tach and see if it still does it, look around at the gray wire's routing, also look at the black/yellow wire as well.

If it's not something previously mentioned, it could be a shorted coil or bad plug wire. Check the plug wires by running the motor in the dark and look for arcs. If it's a coil arcing out the back you might hear a snapping sound when it arcs.

thanks guys. I'll take a look. The tach and fuel gage (both new within two years) are having issues so I wonder if its related. Tach jumps and fuel gage goes straight to full when I turn the key on. Neither did this when I installed them. Hopefully I'll get some spare time this weekend and track it down. Too many projects and not enough time.

maury, do you have a volt gauge of your dash or gps? check to see if that is reading normal. check the neg post on your battery.

Its nice haveing some knowledge around.:clap:

Amen!!!

No volt gauge or gps. If it will ever stop raining down here I'll be able to take a look.

You can send some of that weather up here!!...we havin' another DROUGHT!!

hey Reel, the weather is here, raining cats and dogs this am

I was having odd readings on my gauges and a little zap when the floor was wet, it turned out to be the end of the steering cable where it exited the column was rubbing the hot wire on the back of the ignition.

Kurt

also had a friend this happened to ... was the ignition switch shorting out.

Damn...now that makes sense...:clap:

I have had that happen with cars, with a wire arcing onto the engine, and nailing me thru the damn break pedal...lol

make sure to let me know what this is when you find out....if I can control it, it might make a pretty good theft deterent system :bat:

If its at the steering wheel, is it shocky at the motor end of the steering cable? Unpainted parts of motor?
I got shocked on the cowling latches of my old Merc 150. Plug wires arcing to the metal latch.

Check for corroded/loose ground (neg) connections on the motor and the battery. If there is a "high resistance" poor connection, the juice my be trying to find a return wherever it can.