No Power at Ignition or Instrument Panel

[kaclark22]

I went to winterize my boat last weekend and ran out of antifreeze before I could come up to temp. Went down again this weekend and found my key in the ignition (not sure what position it was in) and a drained battery. No worries, I have a backup battery. I know my backup battery was charged and still no power to the ignition or anything on the instrument panel (bilge pump, blower, horn...nothing). I don't think it's the ignition switch as the horn is not working either. The trim does work.

I checked all the connections that I could locate and all the fuses at the instrument panel, the fuse coming off the battery +, reset the 50A circuit breaker...nothing worked.

Any thoughts or ideas are greatly appreciated!

TIA,
Kyle

 

[nola mike]

As always, since you didn't specify what you're working on, we'll assume that your wiring is identical to mine. You should have a red/purple wire to the ignition switch. The purple supplies the gauges and the ignition when the key is in the run position. So check power coming into the switch first and we can go from there. Also, in general winterizing with antifreeze without properly draining the block is a bad idea.

 

[GA_Boater]

If you're using a meter or test light, don't check for voltage on the battery posts. Check on the battery cable connectors. If you have a poor cable connection the battery can be fully charged, but the voltage can't get to the cables.

 

[kaclark22]

I went to winterize my boat last weekend and ran out of antifreeze before I could come up to temp. Went down again this weekend and found my key in the ignition (not sure what position it was in) and a drained battery. No worries, I have a backup battery. I know my backup battery was charged and still no power to the ignition or anything on the instrument panel (bilge pump, blower, horn...nothing). I don't think it's the ignition switch as the horn is not working either. The trim does work.

I checked all the connections that I could locate and all the fuses at the instrument panel, the fuse coming off the battery +, reset the 50A circuit breaker...nothing worked.

Any thoughts or ideas are greatly appreciated!

TIA,
Kyle

Sorry boat is a 2016 Sea Ray 19SPX with 4.3TKS. I did pull the 5 drain plugs prior to running AF. Since the horn doesn’t have power, that would rule out the lanyard switch correct? I see a lot of folks having issues with that when I search but I don’t think that’s my problem. Thank you for the comments so far!

 

[AShipShow]

You need to start at one end and work towards the other and see where you find a change... Either start at the key switch or start at the main circuit breaker...

I would start at the circuit breaker and measure the red/pur wire back to the battery negative and check for 12V... if yes, then unplug the main harness connector and check the red/pur wire pin (should be pin 6)... Check that you have 12V at the engine side of the harness. If yes, then check for 12V at the red/pur wire at the key switch. If yes, then key switch is bad.

If the answer is no to any of those, than you have a break in the wire somewhere between that point and the previously checked point.

My bet is you have either a loose connection or a bad ground connection.

 

[Lou C]

Check the fuse for the ignition circuit, I had a similar problem where I had some oxidation on the fuse and no power to anything but the trim system. Pulled out the fuse put it back in and everything worked! That one had me going. Check for battery volts at the B terminal (red wire) at the ignition switch, when you turn on the ignition (purple wire) you should have battery volts at the I terminal on the switch, and battery voltage at the S terminal (yellow/red wire) when you turn to start.