Re: 77' 85hp no charge
That 'condenser' is the "Mercury tilt switch", the one that shuts off the ignition system if the engine gets kicked up... and has nothing to do with charging.
The most likely cause of 'not charging' is a blown rectifier, usually caused by someone putting the battery leads on backwards. I have hear some people say that did that, but it wasn't for long... Doesn't matter, the damage is instant. One or more of the diode legs in the rectifier gets blown and that's it, no charge.... Real easy to test for, if you have a meter with a 'Diode test' function.
The rectifier consists of 4 diodes in a bridge formation... You must remove all the wires from it BEFORE testing... Check each leg in both directions (forward biased and reverse biased). You need to see about 0.7volts when the diode is forward biased and an open circuit when it's reversed. If any leg is short or open where is shouldn't be, new rectifier required.
This is a diagram of how the rectifier looks inside... (There may also be a gray lead on one of the ~ terminals (with a yellow lead). That's the tacho feed.)
