Starting issues

[Justin Larsen]

Here's a fun one. This weekend I went down to the slip to start my 220OV because it had been sitting for approx 3 weeks. No issues when I docked her last but when I tried to start her this time I got nothing and I mean nothing, no clicks, no roll over, no draw on the voltage gauge. I wasn't in the head space to troubleshoot at the time but pulled the starting battery yesterday which came back fine and went down today to start digging in. First stop was the ignition but multimeter proved no issue there so I moved to the motor. What I found was that voltage on the hot side of the slave solenoid was jumping. 12 to 10 to 3 to 7 to 0 and repeated not always in that sequence but always moving. I traced the red and purple 6 gauge wire back to the harness and beyond and did the old jiggle of the harness. The power stabilized at 12.4 and I decided to try to start the motor. It worked, started and ran fine. Took it through multiple cycles and all is good. I though okay it's a wire issue let's try to recreate it. I tried for almost an hour exploring the harness and moving everything to try and generate a voltage drop but nothing. Every thing seems fine but my confidence to take it off the dock is shaken, I am not a stranger to electrical issues but the fact that I can't recreate it is perplexing. Am I missing something here?

 

[Little Ducky]

During this time did you reset the throttle control to neutral at any point in time before it then started back up?

When one or both, embarrassingly I might add, of my engines won't fire off I inadvertently turned off the engines with the throttles engaged.

 

[Wanderer 290]

There Is a plug about 1 1/4 inch in diameter with approx 9 pins that connects the main harness to the engine harness that has a hose clamp on it for retention.
I had a similar problem to yours, everything dead and after shaking wires it started, traced the problem to that connection.
Additionally, check crimped connections for broken wires and the actual crimp fittings for corrosion.
Sounds like a lot of work but is actually easy snd quick.

 

[Justin Larsen]

Happens to the best of us

No while I had play with the throttle A LOT during the process thinking it might be the neutral interrupter switch this time I did not. As soon as I saw a steady 12.4V on the hot side of the solenoid it tried the key (just a quick turn) and got a response from the starter.

I am thinking it may be the wiring to the side of the solenoid but if you have a broken wire you can usually recreate the issue by working the harness.

 

[Justin Larsen]

There Is a plug about 1 1/4 inch in diameter with approx 9 pins that connects the main harness to the engine harness that has a hose clamp on it for retention.
I had a similar problem to yours, everything dead and after shaking wires it started, traced the problem to that connection.
Additionally, check crimped connections for broken wires and the actual crimp fittings for corrosion.
Sounds like a lot of work but is actually easy snd quick.

I did pull the harness to take a peek, I will start there with cleaning. Everything is fine now but I'd rather not be dealing with this issue off the dock. 4

 

[mdolesh]

I had a similar issue, it was corrosion. Not much but just enough to cause that issue. Cleaned it up really well and never had the issue again.