My first post- Starbird engines no power. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[phantomsd]

Hello All,

I have been a member and follow threads for years. This is a fantastic group! Learned quite a bit very quickly. I searched previous threads but not able to find anyone with the same issue I am having. This is the scenario:

2005 Searay 320
~200 hours on each twin Horizons
Vdrive inboards


I have had an issue where my starboard engines have zero power. When I turn the ignition, I get nothing. All power to the starboard electronics is dead. Port side engine and electronics (switch lights, etc) are perfect and engine starts. This happened last year and I replaced the batteries and still nothing. Then one day its all fine. Now its happening again. Its not that intermittent. Its always dead then one day they worked and for months, dead again.

Its obviously electronic, either a failed board or wiring. I was hoping is common enough where it happened to someone else here and I can get an idea of where to start looking. Most of the mechanics get worried when they hear electrical issues.

Any help is GREATLY appreciated.

Peter

 

[scoflaw]

Sounds like a bad connection or bad switch. Your gonna have to run it down with a volt meter. Battery runs to your main switch { big dial style} then to the keyed switch then to the rocker switch at helm. Start at the rocker switch and work your way back with the meter. If everything works fine when it's running it sounds like a simple fix.

 

[fwebster]

I don't think his problem is the breaker because it is intermittent.

This sounds like an open or partially open circuit between the engine and the helm station. Sea Ray makes their own wiring harnesses and you will have several harnesses used to getting power from the batteries to the helm and back to the engines. I am not sure on the 320DA because I haven't looked at the wiring diagram, but you probably have (1) one going from the switch panel on the dash to them helm station harness, then (2) one from the helm station harness to the bulkhead, then (3) one from the bulkhead to the engine. Each harness is a bundle of color coded wires that terminates at one end with a Molex type female plug and a Molex type male plug on the other end. Here is what the plugs on the harness ends looks like.....this is representative; not exact because Moles plugs can have as few as 2 conductors or 10-12.:

http://www.molexkits.com/Type/MLX/

This style of plug has removable pins that are crimped onto the end of each wire, then the pin is inserted into the nylon plug body. More than likely, one of the pins on the wire that sends power to t he helm has slipped in the plug body, or a wire wasn't adequately crimped. Finding the problem is the hard part, fixing it is easy. Start by getting your wiring diagram out and locating the ignition switch and then look for the 12v source wire and note its color. Next, I would start at the helm because the chances are that the problem is on that end. Remove the switch panel and find the terminal block connecting the switches to the next harness. It will be laying behind the switch panel and the switch harness is usually pretty short so it is close. Examine the mated harness plugs and see if you notice any misalignment from the outside.......Sea Ray uses white nylon plug bodies so it ie pretty easy to see thru then. NExt, pull the 2 plugs apart and use a small tool to push the pins back in place if you see a misalignment, if not push then back in place to insure they are seated. While apart, check for voltage on the 12V wire. If you have full voltage, then the problem is further on down the line. Follow the wiring harnesses to the next terminal block and pull it apart and do the same thing....i.e. be sure the pins are seated and that you have voltage.

Also, the fact that new batteries seemed to cure the problem last year indicated that you probably have a loose or partial connection where one of the male/female pins has moved a little. A loose connection is a high resistance connection so with weak batteries, you might not have had enough voltage to operate the engine and the new fresh batteries had enough voltage so things worked ok.

I hope this helps you narrow down the problem............

 

[electricaldoctor]

I have a friend who just encountered the same problem. His boat worked fine last year but, when tried to start this year, one of his engines failed to start. After several hours of diagnostic time, the marina tech narrowed it down to the engine's harness connector. He cut the harness ends off and soldered the wires and covered each splice with heat shrink. Problem solved.

 

[phantomsd]

Guys, thank you very much for the replies. This is the update. Keep in mind, I had been on the boat very infrequently for the past year and swore that the starboard worked at one point but now not sure. I am leaning toward the fact that it hasnt powered up at all. This is where I am

I used the emergency 'twin power' switch at the helm after launching the port engine -> then held down the emergency twin switch -> then the starboard switch and wala! starboard engines fired up and all the dash power lights up.

That said, its seems as if the controls (anchor, and all accessories) pull power from the starboard battery bank because when I try the anchor, the current draw kills the engine. If I hold the twin emergency switch, then it fires back up. The amperage on the dash show the starboard putting out ~12V which is low and when you run accessories, it drops below that. If I hold down the emergency switch then do the anchor, its fine.

Holding the emergency switch bridges the battery banks based on the manual. Its almost like no current is coming from the starboard batteries which are new and replaced hoping to solve this issue. That said, even if the batteries were weak, I assume the system shouldn't rely on one bank for all power.

Would the breaker on the engine noted in one of the responses potentially cause this? I haven't checked that yet.

I have not walked my way down the wiring harness to check it but did check the switches and connectors and they look solid. Nothing has been touched on the boat, and its practically all new which leads me to suspect a breaker somewhere.

Thanks!

 

[fwebster]

Your more complete description make post #4 unlikely.

2005 vintage engines require a threshold voltage of something like 11.0V to run. If your batteries are lower than that due to either a bad alternator or bad onboard converter or something else in the charging circuit, you will only start that engine by using the emergency start switch to cross feed voltage from the good side to exceed the minimum required to start and run.

Start at the batteries and check your voltages from there.

 

[scoflaw]

If your battery is indeed good and your alternator is charging it, you should check both with a volt meter to verify before moving forward, I would suspect a bad cable or corroded connections between the battery and the main switch [dial]. Since the bridging works, your connections are good from that switch forward.