'85 J235txco electrical question

[jshall]

Hey guys-
this past week on vacation, i had an issue come up for a few minutes and then never resurfaced.

while idling up the river to the gulf, the volt meter rose to 16 volts for a period of about 5 minutes. While at 16 volts, I happen to trim the motor up a bit. The motor bogged, and the tach dropped to almost 0. When I let off the trim button, the tach and engine restored.

A few minutes after that, the volt meter, slowly returned to the normal 13 and change, and I never noticed it high again.

Everything else seems to operating normally.

thanks for any input.

 

[Dhadley]

Re: '85 J235txco electrical question

Does the tach still work OK?

 

[jshall]

Re: '85 J235txco electrical question

I'd been having an intermittent problem of the tach not working at all. It either worked or didn't. When it didnt work, the volt meter read closer to 12 volts, but when the tach works, the volt meter sits where its supposed to.

Anyway, I'd never seen the condition described in the original post before, and except for those couple of minutes, everything seemed to be ok the remainder of the vacation.

I was assuming, without doing any iinvestigation yet, a problem with the stator or reg/rec or a connection problem.

 

[Dhadley]

Re: '85 J235txco electrical question

What you described in conjunction with an intermittent tach are all signs the water cooled reg/rec is overheating and on the way out.

 

[jshall]

Re: '85 J235txco electrical question

Thanks D-
Thats kind of where I was leaning, and its good to get some agreement-

 

[HighTrim]

Re: '85 J235txco electrical question

I agree with Mr Hadley. Check the FAQ for the testing procedure as per Joe Reeves instructions. I would not let this go long.

 

[Dhadley]

Re: '85 J235txco electrical question

First you'll need to determine why it's not cooling properly. It could be as simple as loose wing nuts and/or dirty connections. Could be the block isn't filling with water. Let's start with the easy stuff first. Clean the battery connections and make sure there are nyloc nuts, not wing nuts.

 

[jshall]

Re: '85 J235txco electrical question

thanks guys- I will be working on this this weekend- and will get rid of those wing nuts-

 

[jshall]

Re: '85 J235txco electrical question

just to ask a question about the overheating part though. When the tach doesn't work, it won't work right from the startup of the engine. Its not a situation where it runs for a bit and then quits. I would not think there would be sufficient time to overheat? This has been very intermittent, but that symptom has been consistent each time the tach has not worked.

 

[Dhadley]

Re: '85 J235txco electrical question

The tach reads thru the water cooled reg/rec. If it has started to overheat some of the internal wiring may be starting to short out. Worst case scenario is that the wires short out and then burn. Do a serch on electrical fire or reg/rec wiring. In almost every case the tach shows some unusual function first.