batteries dead, engine hood can't open; PLEASE HELP

Ethan's Tank

Member
Jun 1, 2014
425
aquia creek.potomac river United States
Boat Info
2009 Searay sundancer 350DA with twin 496 seacores
2000 wellcraft 2600 martinique [old]
Engines
Mercruiser 350 5.7 EFI
I have a 09 350DA/370DA with a hydraulic lift to get to the engine room. I left the 5 new AGM batteries over the winter plugged into the marina wall outlet to have the battery charger keep the batteries topped off. Since the spring, the marina had moved my boat from one spot to another to free up parking and left the charger unplugged.
Now in mid-summer, I have decided to launch my boat. On the 4th of July, I had plugged my charger back in, and today I had tried to see if there was any juice to open the engine hood to get to the ER. No luck, batteries dead. I went to costco and picked up one of their Duracell battery jump box rated at 1100 Peak Amp (4-6-8 cylinder engines), charged it for a few hours and plugged it to the cigarette lighter.
When I turned the engine key for both engines, I got a green light ONLY to the starboard push button, no green light on the port side button. I went up to press the hatch button and there is no power at all. Maybe the powerpack isn't strong enough or not completely charged, but I can't get it to open. Bilge fan, bilge pump, horn worked.
I left with the battery charge still plugged in, I'm home now charging the powerpack. I'm going back tomorrow to work on this some more.
Any one have this problem or have a solution? I am getting desperate....
 
Jump box fed back into the lighter outlet should work. Check the fuse that feeds the hatch. If other 12v items work, than so should the hatch.
 
Jump box fed back into the lighter outlet should work. Check the fuse that feeds the hatch. If other 12v items work, than so should the hatch.

I'll try again tomorrow with the power pack fully charged. Hopefully that would work. I'll also try to bring a car battery and hunt down some 12v cigarette adapter with clamps to see if a full car battery can give it full juice to open.
I had this happen a few years ago , but the batteries were completely out except 1 to close the hatch when I was winterizing and it was a deep cycle. I'm just afraid with the AGM battery, its not compatible with the flooded and not giving it the right power....maybe 12v is 12v?? I'm just disappointed since I paid a lot for these AGMs and they are supposed to be superior.
 
I heard a lot of nice things about the AGM batteries as well but they aren't compatible with the voltage regulators on my 24 year old outboard.

seems like a nightmare having the batteries in a location you can't access without fully charged batteries. Any way you can route to and install a topside battery switch you can flip to should it ever happen again? Then if it does, you can just bring or borrow another battery, hook it up, flip the switch and raise your hatch?
 
There should be a small access hatch where you can pull the pin on the hydraulic ram and manually lift the engine hatch...
 
Generator as your shore power not an option?
 
Why don't you get a shore power adapter cord and a heavy duty extension and plug it in?

328772-18942.jpg
 
There should be a small access hatch where you can pull the pin on the hydraulic ram and manually lift the engine hatch...

I'm guessing you have two actuators as my 2009 310/330 has two. You'll probably need to look in storage areas under seats to find the 3" access ports for removing the pin(s). One of mine is under a rear seat (in the storage compartment) and the other is in the shore power connection compartment. Due to their placement, both of mine are nearly impossible to actually reach in and pull the actuator pin--perhaps if you had long, thin, stretchy arms, but I could only reach one.

Worse yet, if your 350 EIM breakers are like mine, the breaker for the actuators are in the bilge on the forward bulkhead. They are "press-to-reset" but unless you have another access port close to the front bulkhead, you may be in for some fun. I had to remove the cockpit table base to use it's hole in order to reach in with a length of PEX and reset the breaker.

If you find yourself having to lift the hatch manually, bring along a 2x4 (or 2) to prop it up as it's a heavy dead-lift to do more than once...finding a point to lift from is impossible on my boat as there simply aren't any handles/latches.

This design definitely get's my nomination for "engineer of the year award" at Sea Ray...
 
You say the marina caused the problem by unplugging your charger. Why not tell them to take care of it. When our marina screws up, they fix it.
 
I'm guessing you have two actuators as my 2009 310/330 has two. You'll probably need to look in storage areas under seats to find the 3" access ports for removing the pin(s). One of mine is under a rear seat (in the storage compartment) and the other is in the shore power connection compartment. Due to their placement, both of mine are nearly impossible to actually reach in and pull the actuator pin--perhaps if you had long, thin, stretchy arms, but I could only reach one.

Worse yet, if your 350 EIM breakers are like mine, the breaker for the actuators are in the bilge on the forward bulkhead. They are "press-to-reset" but unless you have another access port close to the front bulkhead, you may be in for some fun. I had to remove the cockpit table base to use it's hole in order to reach in with a length of PEX and reset the breaker.

If you find yourself having to lift the hatch manually, bring along a 2x4 (or 2) to prop it up as it's a heavy dead-lift to do more than once...finding a point to lift from is impossible on my boat as there simply aren't any handles/latches.

This design definitely get's my nomination for "engineer of the year award" at Sea Ray...

I've done the pin thing in the past, the engine hood definitely is heavy, i couldn't do it in the past and felt like I was going to break the fiberglass. It is a stupid design
 
20180704_140034.jpg
20180704_140026.jpg
You say the marina caused the problem by unplugging your charger. Why not tell them to take care of it. When our marina screws up, they fix it.

I wasn't going to launch my boat this year, but since my marina has let the docks go to crap and they charge the same amount for wet slip or for boat storage, I decided to leave this marina and go to another. So I'm launching, prepping and leaving. Here is a pic of slip I've been in for 6 years
 
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So thank you everyone for the suggestions.

I was able to successfully get it to open, I had to pull the battery from my car to clamps and a 12v adapter, plugged into the cigarette lighter and it worked, as some of you mentioned. The 2 jump packs I used was not able to power it enough, so they are going back to the store.

Here is something I don't get though, after I opened the hatch, I disconnected the live battery from my car. Yesterday, only the starboard side was green on the button, but the port side wasn't doing anything, no light, no clicking.
After I opened up the hatch and disconnected, I figured everything would be dead. I jumped down to the ER to see if the battery charger was working and it was on. I had my wife hit the hood button and it was working. I looked at the breaker panel in the engine room and both the port and starboard button was green. Seemed the car battery jumpstarted something.
I turned off the battery charger at the inside breaker, unplugged shore power and tested the batteries.
Turns out I had 2 deep cycle batteries [old] and they were reading 10.32V and the 3 AGM batteries [born on date 4/17] was reading 3.6V. I'm deciding if I should go replace the 2 deep cycles with new AGM batteries. In case this happens again, I can use those new batteries to open the hatch again and replace the deep cycles this weekend. I'm giving it a week to re-charge the 3 old AGM back to normal voltage, they're still under warranty so I can replace them [hopefully]. The thing I'm worried about is the PRO-NAUTIC 1240 charger since the light on the unit is under conditioning and not charging. Here is a pic of the 1240 when it was under normal condition for deep cycle. CURRENTLY, the AGM is setup for Preset 1 and the conditioning is lit up. Volt is 13.4 and Amps is around 22-24
IMAG1500.jpg



These are the AGM I bought

IMAG0285.jpg
 
I notice you have flooded selected on your charger. If you have AGM batteries then you need to select AGM as the battery type in your charger.
 
I notice you have flooded selected on your charger. If you have AGM batteries then you need to select AGM as the battery type in your charger.
That's an old pic of the charger I am using when it was on all flooded.
Its set for AGM now even though its 3AGM/2flooded. I called pro-nautic and its almost the same preset except for .1 in the voltage
 
If I follow this correctly....you replaced three out of five batteries and all five were basically discharged in storage even though you had the boat plugged in. That is a mystery by itself given that they are on separate banks. New batteries easily last a season in storage with no need to charge them if the battery switches are off.

So, the only thing common to all five batteries is the charger itself. Promariner makes a good product but in this case....something seems wrong. I also notice your charger doesn't seem to have an indicator light for which Bank it is charging which again makes it hard to tell if it is working at spec or not. I believe you have 3 separate banks.

I suspect that the charger itself is the issue.
 
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While I don’t have an iron in the fire yet, I’m always looking at potential,problems. The dead battery thing was something I wanted to know about.

The 98 450 Sundancer I’m looking at has been out of the water since last year. I didn’t see any cords plugged in so I’d guess the batteries at best will be low.

I wondered about the engine room hatch as I couldn’t budge it when I tried to open it. Being a newby I didn’t force the issue. The sale rep just said he would charge the batteries. So I’d guess I should plan on new batteries right off. $750 at $150 each based on my diesel truck.

It will be a bargaining issue to keep in mind. I’m not supposed to lift anything and dragging batteries out of a dungeon will be a test my doc need not hear about.

The hatch problem is something I’ll address after the boat is mine. I hate tearing nice things up but quick and easy access the the engine room is something that needs “ fixing” immediately. Fortunately this stuff is something I do. We build trailers with electric and hydraulic actuators on hatches. Every one has a way to disconnect the actuator externally. Both systetems have seen actuator failures.

As for the batteries, my diesel truck has shown that even the best and largest ones only last 3 years. Pushing to 4 almost guarantees a AAA call to start it. I drive it every day so they maintain a good charge.

Anyway thanks for the heads up on the battery situation and equipment they work with.

Byron
 

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