Twin engine battery to engine wiring.

[oldmako69]

Unfortunately, this boat is an Angler. The price was right and I wanted a large CC. Plus, it only had 125 hours on it and had been stored inside. A really nice boat would have been twice what I paid, perhaps more.

One good thing is that it's got a fabulous layout and tons of room with a 10 foot beam. My biggest gripe is the way things were done in the bilge and with the engines. Knowing that I will eventually have to waste 5 grand on the exhaust makes me sick, but I bought it knowing that, and at a price that would allow me to do that later.

Local YAM mech says ignore it for now and take a peek at the end of this coming season when I do the water pumps.

I sold my Mako years ago.

[pstephens46]

That is a good point regarding covers. My positive connections have covers and that would be a good thing to do to avoid contact, esp during maintenance. My connection point is on the side of bilge. Probably take 1 1/2 feet of water to cover it.

Nice looking rig. Always heard the old Mako was better than the new one....

[oldmako69]

In my case, they wouldn't unless YAM offered some really long cables. My BATTS are in the center console which is probably 12-15 feet not counting the twists and turns required to get them there. I actually prefer it that way for a few reasons. One, it gets a significant amount of weight forward. The stern is already heavy enough with 1200 pounds of engines hanging off it it. Plus, they put a substantial livewell back there as well. So the weight shift is a plus.

Second, they will stay cleaner and are much easier to look after in the console.
I realize that I lose amperage with all that distance, but it just provides me with another reason to keep a close eye on my voltage pre and post start as well as corrosion at the anodes.

So, they ran cables. I just need to spend some time trying to determine exactly what's going on and if possible, rectify the situation. Hopefully, a long wire and a Multimeter will do the trick. I will try and follow up here with the solution to the No Crank issue. HOPEFULLY, its the significant amount of corrosion that I found at the connections. I may just put a dollop of vaseline on top of those bolts, and cover them with a shield to prevent any metal from ever making contact with them. Additionally, they are fairly low in the bilge and will be subjected to sloshing bilge water. I will try and raise them, but that may prove impossible given the little amount of slack in the battery cables. There's plenty of extra on the engines so that may help, but I'll have to cut a hatch someplace closer to the batteries.

That's a problem for later on. Now I need to get it running properly.

Thanks to all who posted and offered advice.

[pstephens46]

Certainly. Its a "violation of convention" and annoying evidence of someone's halfass-ery,
but clearly "works".

Apparently the boat was designed/built with the assumption that Yamaha engine cables would not reach directly to the batteries...

Batteries are mid-ship, prob under console...I would guess or hope?

[fairdeal]

I have to assume that they are "correct" even though akimbo, otherwise the electronics on that engine would have fried themselves instantly, or in very short order.

Certainly. Its a "violation of convention" and annoying evidence of someone's halfass-ery,
but clearly "works".

Apparently the boat was designed/built with the assumption that Yamaha engine cables would not reach directly to the batteries...

[oldmako69]

I have to assume that they are "correct" even though akimbo, otherwise the electronics on that engine would have fried themselves instantly, or in very short order.

I bought the boat late last summer. Its a 2005 and was stored inside for a long time. It only had 125 hours on it. It ran great on the shakedown and I have put about 40 hours on it since. So, this is why I think the cables must be ass backward somewhere, but someone made the "correction" in the bilge. I think this boat MUST have been plumbed with its hull cap OFF, and then installed due to the inaccessibility of the pumps, wiring etc. For example, there is no way to get near the bilge pumps. Installation would have to have been accomplished with the cap off.

Only recently has the engine begun to stall at idle and suffer from the 'no-crank' condition in my other thread. I believe that I fixed that when I cleaned the corroded engine to batt connections in the bilge. I'll find out the next several times I operate the boat.

[pstephens46]

I would track it down and figure out where they are crossed. I might get hit by a truck and the next owner would find it and assume I made the mess....

[cpostis]

posting your photo again in a different way - some posters seem to have problems with the site-based photos:




safe to say, whoever did this was not a slavish adherent to wire color conventions.
But it does make it hard to guess what we are seeing...
now, this is a "ground bus" - all these leads are common?

or, are all four studs insulated from the others?

My Genuine Yamaha cables on my '97 Mako are both black from my single engine. However one has red shrink wrap around either end. The other has black shrink wrap around each end from the factory. They are both connected to a block, such as oldmako's. The block bolt terminals are isolated/insulated from each other (not common). From the block my non-Yamaha cables to the batteries are red and black respectively from the red and black shrink wrapped Yamaha cables. Oldmakos' two cables on the left side apparently are reversed somewhere else, like pstephens suggested.

[oldmako69]

Fairdeal, many thanks for fixing my pic.

I do not know if they are common. This assembly is far down into the bilge and it just about killed me to discon each nut (one at a time, two wires at a time) and clean the lugs.

What I don't know about elecs is a LOT. But I do know that messing polarity up causes very expen$ive problem$. So, I did them one at a time. All were filthy and heavily corroded.

All are now clean, lightly coated with dielectric and then sprayed with Fluid Film. And, I bumped the wonky starter about 10-12 times and it engaged every time.

When does red ever meet black in the world of 12V electrics???

[pstephens46]

Maybe the two are reversed somewhere else? Engine or battery? Making the connection correct?

[fairdeal]

posting your photo again in a different way - some posters seem to have problems with the site-based photos:




safe to say, whoever did this was not a slavish adherent to wire color conventions.
But it does make it hard to guess what we are seeing...
now, this is a "ground bus" - all these leads are common?

or, are all four studs insulated from the others?

[oldmako69]

Take a gander at this and tell me that I'm an idiot and that this is proper.

One engine is black to black, red to red (far left 2 bolts)

The other is black (batt) to red (engine) and red (batt) to black (engine).

This is before I touched them, and after I put about 40 hours on the boat. Most of the time, it started and ran perfectly.