outboard troubles... electrical
 

Have a 1990 johnson 175 which had electrical failure last night.... motor ran great all day, as I was cranking the motor to run in for the day it just stopped.


I have power to the motor but I didn't have time to do much trouble shooting

I can hear the solenoid clicking but the starter wont kick up. My tilt/trim also will not work. It tries but doesn't have enough juice to make the motor move.

All I have checked so far is the voltage on the battery and the voltage through the cables to the motor, all is good there. I ran out of light and couldn't get into it any further. only thing I have ruled out so far is battery and cable issues.



My question is does anyone have a guess as to what may be wrong or where I should look first tonight?

Thanks

just a guess, but both systems you mentioned (trim & starter) have high amp draw. i would think a bad cable connection or a bad cable.
check voltage at the motor while trying to start or trim

one of the real motor heads will be along soon

Look for a bad ground connection at the motor.... ALSO it is very important to check voltage under a load..... You could have a high resistance connection that passes 12v easily but as soon as you hit the starter switch or trim the voltage might drop to 1 or 2 volts

The ground looked good, i will try to test it under load tonight. i couldnt do that by myself last night.

Easy test is run a set of jumper cables from a known good battery to your starter and then to your tilt/trim unit. See if they work. If they work, then you have a bad cable (either pos or neg), bad connection or bad battery.

i ran jumpers from the same battery that was on the boat to the motor last night and got the same results... maybe the battery is bad.... ill have it load tested tonight

Just put your car near the boat and run the jumpers from it to the outboard. Why spend money if you don't have to? :head:


Oh, and make sure you ground to the motor being tested, not to your outboard engine itself. (If your motor ground is corroded and you ground to your engine then you'll get bad results). The idea is to eliminate potential problem areas, and if you have a bad ground and you use it during the test then you'll never find the problem.

boat was in a slip making things a bit more difficult.... but the results are in, it was a bad battery

old battery showed 12.5 but under a load it wouldnt put out much of anything.... new battery and problem solved


thanks everyone

Cheap and easy fix.

I am late on this--but if a battery has full voltage does not mean it has any amps to speak of in it.

good easy find.

remember--a alternator is NOT a battery charger!