1992 Evinrude 200 rectifier burned up

[Stratos 201ski]

I have a 1992 Evinrude 200 XP I just replaced the water cooled rectifier and stator had it running on muffs everything was good the tach was working again and the battery was charging like it should so I took it down the road to the lake and ran around for about 15 minutes and noticed smoke coming from under engine cowl stopped and removed cowl it was on fire I got the small fire pit out it was in the area if the rectifier so I took it home and removed cover and rectifier had a hole burned through the top and it fried all the wiring .I know everything was wired correctly because I labeled and double checked and it ran great on muffs I'm wondering if it was a cooling problem or possibly a faulty rectifier . It was a new cdi rectifier and stator their was no burning on the stator .I just replaced the water pump last week and it had a good steady stream. Could it possibly be the thermostat sticking I'm not too familiar with how the cooling system is routed any input would be appreciated thanks

 

[Stratos 201ski]

Any thiughts would be appreciated

 

[flyingscott]

Did you change your waterpump impeller? That might be weak

 

[Stratos 201ski]

Yes changed impellar last week has a good strong stream coming out

 

[Stratos 201ski]

It burned a hole from the inside out on the regulator rectifier then charred the wiring

 

[Stratos 201ski]

I'm going to replace the rectifier,power pack and wiring harness next week I just don't want it to happen again so trying to figure out why it happened . It was an aftermarket cdi regulator but I'm going with OEM this time

 

[Stratos 201ski]

There was no overheating on the engine so only thing I can think of is a short somewhere maybe a wire got pinched or the regulator itself shorted out

 

[Crosbyman]

anyway you could measure the amps coming out while under way ??

….aside from an internal fault it may have gone South due to an overload of some kind .. maybe a bad battery soaking up to many amps….a shorted distribution

by design a regulator should ….self regulate but who knows ...maybe the water cooling is not working (blocked water passage)

 

[Stratos 201ski]

Yea I was thinking maybe a cooling problem .when I start it up next time I will pull the water tube that comes off the block and hooks to tell tale to make sure water is making it up there thanks for your help

 

[dingbat]

Regulators dump excess current as heat.

Make sure your battery terminals are clean and wing nut free. A bad or on the way out battery will burn them up as well.

Pretty easy to pinch a wire when swapping out

 

[boobie]

If you can find one, get an OEM rectifier.

 

[oldboat1]

Use an IR tester to check operating temp at the top of the heads. A functioning tell tale doesn't mean water is sufficiently filling and circulating through the block, and therefore not sufficiently cooling the rectifier/regulator.

 

[Faztbullet]

Be careful buying a OEM rect/reg as CDI made them for BRP for a couple of years. You could end up with someone's NOS CDI made unit with a BOMB sticker. I use the Sierra replacement 18-5832

 

[Stratos 201ski]

Well before i took the old regulator out it was cooling fine and running fine just not charging the battery and tach not working. But after i swapped out with the new rectifier which was a cdi rectifier it ran fine and was charging and tach working but when i opened it up on the lake is when it burned up which leads me to believe possibly a pinched wire or possibly the water pump failed because i wasnt paying attention to the tell tale because of the smoke i just shut it down and had also just changed the waterpump which was pumping good water on the muffs but it basically burned up the rectifier first then charred the wiring for the stator and powerpack and the harness so i have all of these ordered and on the way they are all CDI brand parts brand new. i will hook it all up and see what happens this time

 

[Faztbullet]

Good luck.....