Verado won't fire; electrical

[reelman19]

After cleaning battery terminals, I got an arc on the positive when returning the positive cable; now no fire at all; no electrical anywhere except warning buzzer and two lights on shifter.
Have checked all blade fuses on coming off the battery and under the cowling in the fuse holder.
Is there a main fuse on the boat that could affect all the power and the engine?

[gnrphil]

Do you have power anywhere? Instruments electronics etc?, any power at the starter motor positive connection?

[reelman19]

No

[gnrphil]

Check for continuity between pos cable at battery and starter and then also the ground cable, you should have power from the battery to the starter all the time as this is not fused.

[Juan]

Are you sure both the positive and negative battery terminals are tight and making good contact?

[reelman19]

Checking battery terminals

[reelman19]

Battery terminals are clean and tight.

[gnrphil]

Is there a battery switch?
Do you have 12v across the battery?
How many batteries do you have?

[Warpig]

Try disconnecting all the cables and reconnecting. I took mine off to charge the battery one time and clean them. Put them back on, checked to make sure they were tight. Everything seemed fine. Launched the boat and got just a little bit away from the ramp and everything just shut off. Motor, electronics, everything. Disconnected the cables and reconnected (after dropping anchor) and everything was fine. Those things can get finicky.

[lafromla1]

Sounds like a fuse. I remember on an older motor that I was working on had a 50a in-line fuse that was the main fuse between the battery and the engine. A Verado being a newer engine should have an onboard fuse box, of about 5 or 6 fuses. My 2005 Suzuki has one, so I'm pretty sure your Verado will have one as well.

I would replace all the fuses in your fuse box just in case. Sometimes its difficult to see if the blade fuses actually crapped out or not.

[Deleted]

Oct 2, 2015 4:50:10 GMT -6 reelman19 said:

After cleaning battery terminals, I got an arc on the positive when returning the positive cable; now no fire at all; no electrical anywhere except warning buzzer and two lights on shifter.
Have checked all blade fuses on coming off the battery and under the cowling in the fuse holder.
Is there a main fuse on the boat that could affect all the power and the engine?

If you are 100% sure all of the fuses are good, then next look at your relays.




Check the main power relay, it is turned on by keying on and supplies power to the fuses, On a verado i think there are 5 relays on the left inside of the electrical box, one is main power and the others are starter, fuel pump,trim, etc.. 
The main power has a yellow/purple, two reds and a red/white wire, the start relay has black/blue, red/blue, red and yellow/red. You can try and switch any of the other relays to the main and if the starter turns you know the one you replaced was bad.

If none of that works there may be a fuseable link that has popped somewhere. The is one in the charging circuit of the alternator between the alt. & positive battery post. If that one blew it should only effect recharging the batteries. I am unaware of any others but there could be.

While none of these provides your answer, it gives you a few more rocks to flip over looking...........Good Luck

Here's a link to an electrical box diagram for a 300 verado

 www.boats.net/parts/search/Merc2/Mercury/300%20VERADO%20(4-STROKE)(6%20CYL.)/0P520553%20%26%20Up/Electrical%20Box%20Components/parts.html

[yolo]

When you turn the key does it beep a few times? Or just once?

Also share year and hp with me

[yolo]

And also share if you have smart craft or mechanical gauges.

But if your getting several beeps when you turn the key rather than one single long one, should be a simple fix.

Let me know.

[reelman19]

Got it; turned out to be a a very odd solid block non re settable breaker on the positive side of the cranking battery that had gone bad. In addition it was a 90 amp!! Should have been at most a 40 amp.

[gnrphil]

Awesome  emthup

[yolo]

Oct 14, 2015 19:57:20 GMT -6 reelman19 said:

Got it; turned out to be a a very odd solid block non re settable breaker on the positive side of the cranking battery that had gone bad. In addition it was a 90 amp!! Should have been at most a 40 amp.

You sure that's not the block for the power steering pump?

If it is and you put a 40amp on there your going to have power steering problems next. Merc stopped using that block and now use an inline fuse which is nice.

The 40 amp should be in line on the accessory power relay harness. That is what i was going to tell you to swap out.

[reelman19]

yolo what size in line? 90? re settable circuit like a Blue Sea?

[yolo]

Oct 16, 2015 4:30:27 GMT -6 reelman19 said:

yolo what size in line? 90? re settable circuit like a Blue Sea?

Very much depends what you are referring to. I'm assuming your talking about the power steering fuse. On the new pump that I put in, the power harness uses a blade fuse that you can swap out. The housing/fuse holder is large and factory installed right into the wire. However before I determined that the pump was bad I used the blue sea 90a breaker which is fine and the exact same thing as using a fuse purpose wise.

[reelman19]

Well still a problem; put on a Blue star 90 amp block fuse on the positive side of cranking battery and it blew immediately when I turned the key. Took the fuse out of the connection and cranked right up. Where do I start?

[gtightline]

I know this might sound strange...I would try another battery..It is possible to have a short within the battery (due to the acid environment) and not know it until the battery goes dead. It occurs in all lead core batteries over time... just a thought, but what do I know..