What are these wires?

[craigman]

Fellas,
can anyone tell me what these wires are? They look like they go from the mag down to a little black square box. (about 2 square inches)
Don't know if these are for charging or ignition?
The insulation on the wires are just all crusty and mostly gone.
Can anyone identifly these for me? PLEASE!!!!
Thanks!
Craig

 

[craigman]

Re: What are these wires?

Sorry, forgot to also say it's a 1974 Mercury 850. (85hp)

 

[ajgraz]

Re: What are these wires?

Looks to me like those are the charging wires leading to the rectifier.

 

[narvlebenoit]

Re: What are these wires?

Yes come from stator to rectifire

 

[Jlawsen]

Re: What are these wires?

Sorry, forgot to also say it's a 1974 Mercury 850. (85hp)

LOL We knew that... The wires are comming from the stator. Is it still running? It's hard to say exactly what caused the problem. It could just be age and heat from the engine or it could be a bad negative connection on it's way to the battery negative. If its the latter then you need to fix that before you run it with a new stator or it will probably just happen again. Its pretty common to see this on these motors they had a problem with loosing neg (ground) and the resulting spike in voltage would fry the stators. The battery usually didn't last long either.

 

[craigman]

Re: What are these wires?

Thanks guys for the replys!
The insulation was hard as a rock. Just chipped off. Didn't look burnt or melted. I'm hoping old age.
It ran, but not very good. I'm "hoping" the wires were touching eachother and causing it to run poor.
Is there a way to check the stator and the rectifier?
Thanks for any help shot my way! Trying to get on the lake by next weeking! (fingers crossed! LOL!)

 

[Prophammer]

Re: What are these wires?

Thanks guys for the replys!
The insulation was hard as a rock. Just chipped off. Didn't look burnt or melted. I'm hoping old age.
It ran, but not very good. I'm "hoping" the wires were touching eachother and causing it to run poor.
Is there a way to check the stator and the rectifier?
Thanks for any help shot my way! Trying to get on the lake by next weeking! (fingers crossed! LOL!)

It looks like you have a corrosion problem, the wires shown should be replaced and any others that look like that. Also, check your sacrificial anodes, they may be withered away, allowing your wiring to corrode.

 

[Faztbullet]

Re: What are these wires?

All the older Mercs had that problem due to insulation compound problems. That stator just charges the battery so it will not cause a running issue like a ADI ignition stator. The only issue that could happen is battery voltage drops below 10v and shuts switchbox off as this is a battery CD system. You can get a replacement stator thru CDI electronics.

 

[craigman]

Re: What are these wires?

thanks i'll check it out!
Is there any way to check it before I buy a new one? Also a way to check the rectifier?

 

[Faztbullet]

Re: What are these wires?

Below is rectifier testing, you may have the oblong one but tests are the same. The wiring is to bad to test stator as your looking for a reading of 0.00-0.01 on a digital meter in ohm scale, all it take is a sliver to touch the other wire and it would read good burt still be bad.
http://www.myoutboardengine.com/rectifier.html

 

[craigman]

Re: What are these wires?

Nice link!
Thanks!