I once rewired the lights on an aluminum runabout I had. (A 90 horse Merc on a 17' runabout gets with the program, by the way.) I thought I was clever to use wire nuts for the connections. It turns out that wire nuts are NOT clever. I ran the boat for most of the summer without any problems. Until....
I pulled up to the dock and shut off the motor. All at once there was the ever hated "smell of acrid smoke." You guessed it, electrial fire. I quickly determined that the new wiring job was the source and pulled the hot lead off the battery, burning the palm of my hand (no, that's not the bad part). I looked everything over and all the cables were hot, including the throttle and shift cables, so I thought I had better let them cool down before getting underway again. I didn't need the lights since it was the middle of the afternoon, so now I'm good to go.
I made sure the shifter was in neutral and at low idle, and fired her up. The motor kicked over and ran up to 80 gazillion RPM, then dropped into forward with a terrible bang. The boat didn't move an inch, though, because the drive shaft snapped like a twig. I shut her down and took her home with my tail between my legs.
What happened was that the electrical short to the hull from a wire nut coming loose bypassed the fuse and melted the cables. The neutral switch stayed bypassed and the throttle was FULL open when I turned the key. So, a buck's worth of wire nuts cost me $1500 in lower unit repairs (yep, that was cheap).
You guys can tell me the moral of the story...just don't be too brutal, I was only 25 then and I'm over 50 now.
I pulled up to the dock and shut off the motor. All at once there was the ever hated "smell of acrid smoke." You guessed it, electrial fire. I quickly determined that the new wiring job was the source and pulled the hot lead off the battery, burning the palm of my hand (no, that's not the bad part). I looked everything over and all the cables were hot, including the throttle and shift cables, so I thought I had better let them cool down before getting underway again. I didn't need the lights since it was the middle of the afternoon, so now I'm good to go.
I made sure the shifter was in neutral and at low idle, and fired her up. The motor kicked over and ran up to 80 gazillion RPM, then dropped into forward with a terrible bang. The boat didn't move an inch, though, because the drive shaft snapped like a twig. I shut her down and took her home with my tail between my legs.
What happened was that the electrical short to the hull from a wire nut coming loose bypassed the fuse and melted the cables. The neutral switch stayed bypassed and the throttle was FULL open when I turned the key. So, a buck's worth of wire nuts cost me $1500 in lower unit repairs (yep, that was cheap).
You guys can tell me the moral of the story...just don't be too brutal, I was only 25 then and I'm over 50 now.
