went down to the boat a few days ago for the first time in just shy of 2 week2 (too much time racing on OPB, not enough time cruising on mine!), found my batteries were at 0.2v... I had left nothing on, and I have a small solar panel which usually does a good job keeping everything topped off and at float charge, so clearly something drained them.
I checked the bilge pump, being one of two things that had power (the other being the memory circuit on the stereo) and it was ok, nothing appeared abnormal.
Some further testing with the multimeter while pulling wires off the main buss bar revealed that I appeared to have an open short on somewhere downstream of the engine battery cable, and I'm pretty sure I have traced it down to the starter solenoid on the outboard.
When I disconnect the battery cable from the buss bar and the ignition wire fuse from the solenoid, thus leaving the solenoid completely disconnected from on positive side, and then test from the positive post on the solenoid to the engine block where the ground cable is attached, I read 0 ohms of resistance. This indicates to me it's shorted internally (and though there is no evidence of wires having gotten hot or melted insulation anywhere, I'm still lucky to have not had a fire).
Before I order a $70 solenoid, can anyone confirm that it sounds like a bad solenoid, or suggest anything else I should investigate before ordering parts?
I checked the bilge pump, being one of two things that had power (the other being the memory circuit on the stereo) and it was ok, nothing appeared abnormal.
Some further testing with the multimeter while pulling wires off the main buss bar revealed that I appeared to have an open short on somewhere downstream of the engine battery cable, and I'm pretty sure I have traced it down to the starter solenoid on the outboard.
When I disconnect the battery cable from the buss bar and the ignition wire fuse from the solenoid, thus leaving the solenoid completely disconnected from on positive side, and then test from the positive post on the solenoid to the engine block where the ground cable is attached, I read 0 ohms of resistance. This indicates to me it's shorted internally (and though there is no evidence of wires having gotten hot or melted insulation anywhere, I'm still lucky to have not had a fire).
Before I order a $70 solenoid, can anyone confirm that it sounds like a bad solenoid, or suggest anything else I should investigate before ordering parts?