Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

[bamafutbal]

this is the boat i got off ebay, first trip in the water was 2 weeks ago, ran it for around an hour, ran kind of rough. 2 weeks later (today) i take it out after changing the spark plugs yesterday and ran great but started smelling something burning (engine temp was 170 after 20 minutes)and opened the rear deck and then the motor died. paddled back in and after it cooled down found these wire had laid down across the manifold and burned. i am guessing that as i changed spark plugs, i repositioned these wires. Can i put electrical tape/shrink tape around these and then just zip tie them out of the way? Do i need to take this in the shop to get new one and/or could i have fried my electrical system and looking at replacing a bunch of stuff. Once the motor quit, i waited a minute, turned the key and nothing, i then turned the battery switch off and started paddling.

i have more pics but it took an hour to resize this 1.6mb pic down, so i can forward more pics to someones email if necessary.
and by the way, what is this part called (the collection of wires, and i did unplug the the black housing fron the motor)

 

[bamafutbal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

please be the bearer of good news, my last 4 trips out to lake santa fe in gainesville are towed in (jet ski), paddled in (jet ski), sucess but boat ran rough, paddled the boat in. considering going back to racing crf450's in the ftr hs/mx series if this continues

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

Just going to give you a few ideas. Hopefully at the worst the wires just got shorted and nothing else burnt up, but at much worse you may of fried an electrical component. That looks like a plug in the picture, are the wires burnt from the power side of the plug or the side that is feeding into whatever component? I would unplug it (if it is burnt at the component side of the plug) get you a test light, ground it and see what you get out of the wires . You might have some in line fuses to contend with also. It may make it easier if you give the make and model of the motor, and a full picture of the subject at hand. If you have a volt meter handy take it to the wires to make sure there isn't any voltage drop beyond the point that it is supposed to be, like 12volts for example.

 

[45Auto]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

Looks like a possible easy fixer if you're lucky!

1) Disconnect the battery.

2) Make sure none of the wires are melted together and touching.

3) Separate them so they don't touch.

4) Wrap each one with electrical tape, then twist tie the bundle so it can't touch anything hot.

5) Check all fuses.

6) Hook battery back up. If you smell anything burning disconnect it quick.

7) Hope it starts.

If it's still dead or won't start you probably fried something. If so, everybody will want to know what engine, what year, etc. to try to help you.

Easy, quick way to post pics is go to Photobucket and open an account. It's free. Then just upload your big photo to Photobucket. Under the pic will be a line of text that says "image code". Copy and paste that image code into your post and the nice big picture will appear in your post here for everyone to see. All you will see as you type or edit your post is the "image code" text.

 

[bamafutbal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

its a '99 mercruiser 5.0l thunderbolt 5 ignition and engine serial #0L080644

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

The worst thing is once the wires short like that they could loose there ability to carry the voltage and amps needed to do the job. I would replace the wires if they are down to the bare and no casing, this way you know what you got and you don't half to worry it hitting anything to short out again or worry about component failure. If nothing else cut it below the burnt spot but not to close to the plug, butt another wire to it. Don't use wire nuts use crimp style butt connectors. Just my 2 cents. Somebody may have a better solution. But the methods I mentioned are the methods I would use.

 

[bamafutbal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

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[wildmaninal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

If you already have pictures of it on Photo bucket, just post the link to it you don't half to upload a picture here on this website they'll let you show photobucket's website. The picture you posted is to small.

 

[bamafutbal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b142/bamafutbal/?action=view&current=P1010749-1.jpg

 

[thrasher]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

It looks like one of the wires is black, that should mean that it's negative or ground, so it melting on the exhaust manifold should not have done any harm (engine is grounded), so either repeair the wire or tape it up, the heat of the exhaust manifold should not have damaged the properties of the wire, just melted the plastic insulation. I cannot make out the colour of the other wires. You should get a manual, find out what the other melted wires go to and then start checking those items for damage.

Gary

 

[bamafutbal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

so what is this group of wires called that plugs into the engine

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

A wire harness , sorry I had to do that. It might be your main wire harness for your motor. Do you own or can you get your hands on a test light or volt meter? Now don't be surprised if they move this thread to the mercruiser part of the forum. Surely there will be other people posting on this thread. Good luck and I hope that any advise I gave helps.

 

[bamafutbal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

wire harness, can i look that up on the parts list?

ok found it. it gives me 4 number 1's, which one do i chose if this thing is no good ( i am under wiring harness & electrical components, with serial number 0L080664). my engine is the 5.0l

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

Yep, you should be able to. Are you going to see about another harness all together? Of coarse with your user name you must be from Alabama, you noticed my location. They may have a shematic break down of your motor on that site and give the part number needed to order the harness if you are wanting to do that. Just look to see if they have a wire diagram or schematic break down with parts number listing.

 

[bamafutbal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

UA grad 1989 and wife graduate UA in 92. she is from gainesville and drug me kicking and screaming down here.

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

lol, that's horrible. I'm originally from NY but mostly raised in Bama. Well I'm going to get off of the computer for now. Again good luck hope you get it straightened out.

 

[a70eliminator]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

If that were mine I would fix it, looks like a fairly easy task, use shrink wrap and solder the connections, if you have to add a little section of wire so be it, just use the same guage wire and solder it up, when useing shrink tube don't forget to slide the tube on up the wire before you solder it, and also you can slide up the wire two different sizes of shrinktube, one next size larger to over the first one, it's a way to double up the layers for better insulating.

 

[45Auto]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

Doesn't look that bad. Looks like one wire burned all the way through? Find both ends and splice it back together. Only question will be if you fried any of the ignition electronics. Wire it back up and find out!

 

[JCF350]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

That is your Mercruiser engine harness connector. I don't have a schematics book handy but I believe that the wire that is burnt through is ignition power from the key switch. Should be able to repair the harness and be fine.

By the way that is a lousy place for that harness to be routed. You need to reroute the harness to keep it from rubbing.


Whoops! You'll probably have to replace a fuse or 2 also.:redface:

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Need Help, is this an easy fixer or take it in

By the way that is a lousy place for that harness to be routed. You need to reroute the harness to keep it from rubbing.

I would hope that he has that part figured out . I didn't encourage him on getting a harness, but if that is what he wants to do might as well help him. You might of seen that I asked and he didn't give an answer when I asked if he is going to buy another harness. And I already mentioned about the fuse or fuses.