J Levine
New Member
- Oct 5, 2006
- 753
- Boat Info
- 1995 Sea Ray 370 Sundancer
- Engines
- Mercruiser 7.4L Blue Water inboard V Drives
My big fathers day boat outing turned into a few hours messing around at the dock under overcast skys between rain showers. I cranked up the engines and the gennie to let them run for 10-15 minutes and poked around the bilge looking for trouble..... which I found. The starboard motor was making a clicking sound which after close inspection was from an electirc arc shooting between the output on the top of the coil and the postive input stud.
Hmmm... All of the ignition wires were replaced last winter with Merc OEM parts. I pulled the coil wire and inspected the boot which look normal to me. I cleaned the gunk off of the top of the coil and reinstalled the wire and restarted the motor.... no change. I then swaped the coil wires between the two motors. Starboard was still arcing and port was fine. I then removed the two coils and inspected starboard which shows no signs of cracks in the top. I swapped the coils and the problem went away. I even sat in the totally dark engine room with the motors both running and the day hatch closed and could see no arcs. Any of you fellow gear heads want to render and opinon about this? Think I should buy a spare coil?
The only thing I can think of is that the connector lug on for the positive wire on the arcing coil was bent up. I flattened it out when I swaped the coils increasing the distance between the input wire and the coil out put wire. I also carefully postioned the coil wire such that the location were the wire exits the boot was as far away from the positive input wire as possible. A penny for your thoughs?
Hmmm... All of the ignition wires were replaced last winter with Merc OEM parts. I pulled the coil wire and inspected the boot which look normal to me. I cleaned the gunk off of the top of the coil and reinstalled the wire and restarted the motor.... no change. I then swaped the coil wires between the two motors. Starboard was still arcing and port was fine. I then removed the two coils and inspected starboard which shows no signs of cracks in the top. I swapped the coils and the problem went away. I even sat in the totally dark engine room with the motors both running and the day hatch closed and could see no arcs. Any of you fellow gear heads want to render and opinon about this? Think I should buy a spare coil?
The only thing I can think of is that the connector lug on for the positive wire on the arcing coil was bent up. I flattened it out when I swaped the coils increasing the distance between the input wire and the coil out put wire. I also carefully postioned the coil wire such that the location were the wire exits the boot was as far away from the positive input wire as possible. A penny for your thoughs?
