Took the boat out for a spin yesterday. I always check the guages when heading out through the no wake zone and everything was fine, including voltage level. The boat came up on plane fine and about 10 minutes into the trip, the engine stalled and died. At that point, the voltage level was reading 10 volts.
I thought that maybe I had a bad battery so I switched to the other battery and she started. As soon as I tried to get it moving, it died again. Same story when I switched to both batteries.
We checked in the bilge and found that I had loose battery terminals. We cleaned them up and tightened them up and found that the voltage level for the batteries read normal and the boat would start. With the engine running at 2000 rpm, however, the voltage level still ready only about 12.5 volts instead of the 13 to 14 that it should read if the alrternator were working.
My theory was that when the battery terminals came loose, it blew out the alternator (or the voltage regulator). I figured if I could crank the boat, there should be enough juice to run the engine to get back to the slip. Instead, every time I put the boat in gear, it would die after about 15 seconds. Each time, I could start it back up and it would seem to run fine when not in gear but as soon as I put a load on it, it would die in 15 to 20 seconds.
My question is, can a bad alternator cause this behavior? I am pretty sure that the alternator is not working but do I have something else wrong as well??
By the way, my boat has a Volvo Penta 5.7 GL engine.
Thanks for any opinions.
Capt Frank
I thought that maybe I had a bad battery so I switched to the other battery and she started. As soon as I tried to get it moving, it died again. Same story when I switched to both batteries.
We checked in the bilge and found that I had loose battery terminals. We cleaned them up and tightened them up and found that the voltage level for the batteries read normal and the boat would start. With the engine running at 2000 rpm, however, the voltage level still ready only about 12.5 volts instead of the 13 to 14 that it should read if the alrternator were working.
My theory was that when the battery terminals came loose, it blew out the alternator (or the voltage regulator). I figured if I could crank the boat, there should be enough juice to run the engine to get back to the slip. Instead, every time I put the boat in gear, it would die after about 15 seconds. Each time, I could start it back up and it would seem to run fine when not in gear but as soon as I put a load on it, it would die in 15 to 20 seconds.
My question is, can a bad alternator cause this behavior? I am pretty sure that the alternator is not working but do I have something else wrong as well??
By the way, my boat has a Volvo Penta 5.7 GL engine.
Thanks for any opinions.
Capt Frank
