Dead batteries and now annoying alarm

[Petes Sea Ray]

Hi guys. I have a 1995 230 Sundancer with merc 5.0 and Alpha 1 gen 2. Last weekend while cleaning My Admiral wiped down the breaker panel and turned off the main breaker on accident. As a result my fridge killed my batteries completely dead . I took out 1 battery and charged it. Set battery switch to the charged battery. Started motor and switched to both batteries. My alarm that goes off when motor isn't running but key is turned is constantly going off even with motor running. Did I fry something when I switched to both batteries with motor running??? Please Help.

 

[Lazy Daze]

If it's the original battery switch (or a similar model), then you wouldn't do any damage switching to 'both' with engine running (unless the switch is bad, of course). The only thing that would cause a problem would be switching through "off" with the engine running. However, even so, I can't think of a correlation here, considering it's a '95 engine in a small boat. I suspect you just 'got lucky' and ended up with a separate problem at the same time.

Check: Engine temp (unlikely since you just started it), oil pressure and (possibly, based on year) drive fluid. There's only one more thing and that could be a high water alarm, but I don't think your model has that (OEM, anyways). If engine temp and oil pressure gauges are good, it could still be the sensors for the alarm, though. The drive fluid.... The float could be sticking.

 

[Petes Sea Ray]

Thank You Ill check the drive fluid and other gauges.

 

[Westie]

Just be aware that the oil pressure and temperature have separate sensors for the gauges and the alarms. The sensors for the gauges has a variable resistance output where as the sensors for the alarm are just switches. The easy way to see if one of the alarm sensors have failed is to pull the wire off of it since they are normally open and switch to ground under a fault condition.

 

[Petes Sea Ray]

My drive fluid was empty . I refilled it and alarm stopped and I pulled the boat out of the water. I cant seem to find a leak. I'm confused where all the fluid went????????

 

[Lazy Daze]

How "empty" was it? No fluid in the drive, or just the bottle?

Was the fluid recently changed? It's not uncommon to get air bubbles in the system after a change, and depending on what way it's changed, it can lead to more or less air bubbles.

Did you check the fluid (in the lower unit) for water intrusion while you had it out? That's important.

 

[scoflaw]

Never owned a drive that didn't use some fluid

 

[Petes Sea Ray]

I put a white sheet under the drive and found a small spot about the size of a dime after a day. It was coming from the shift shaft where it comes out of the upper to attach to the lower. Will this leak more while running? Will I be ok if I check it often We have a trip about an hour away.

 

[mvoellinger]

If oil is leaking out, water is most likely leaking in.

Yup. Time to service the drive. When it gets hot, the oil expands while running. It will then leak out. When it cools off and creates a vacuum in the drive, it is likely it will pull water in through the shaft.