Starter panel wiring harness help

[steve201]

While replacing starter switch I had 2 wires come loose from harness.
When I pull up the wiring diagram, both Los and new, the wire colors
Do not match. They also don't match each other.blue on one side may go to gray on the other. Looks like to me some one replaced and did a poor job
The wires also don't match on the boat side (if the purple goes to start button
That's great but the blue may go to the temp but it does not..am I in as bad
Shape as I think or is there another harness type. It's a Catalina mklll 96.
Any ideas, thanks steve

 

[onecoolair]

While replacing starter switch I had 2 wires come loose from harness.
When I pull up the wiring diagram, both Los and new, the wire colors
Do not match. They also don't match each other.blue on one side may go to gray on the other. Looks like to me some one replaced and did a poor job
The wires also don't match on the boat side (if the purple goes to start button
That's great but the blue may go to the temp but it does not..am I in as bad
Shape as I think or is there another harness type. It's a Catalina mklll 96.
Any ideas, thanks steve

Get your self a good ohms meter and learn how to use it....... It will pay for it self many times over.

 

[rbmcintire]

Too late, after the fact, but what I sometimes do, is take a cell phone picture of what I'm wiring up. If you have a schematic you can go by, you need to narrow down which part of the starter panel/starter switch is missing the two connections. Then you have to physically trace each wire back to the engine and identify what each of them does. With each wire's purpose, you can then determine which wire gets put on which of the two missing points. Basically, with the information given, we can't say which wire goes where. Color is not a function, but where the wire lands, it identifies where it goes on the schematic. Find one end, and you'll be able to hook up the other end. You'll get to know that engine VERY well. Do you have that plug harness behind that panel on the '96?

Good Luck!
Rob

While replacing starter switch I had 2 wires come loose from harness.
When I pull up the wiring diagram, both Los and new, the wire colors
Do not match. They also don't match each other.blue on one side may go to gray on the other. Looks like to me some one replaced and did a poor job
The wires also don't match on the boat side (if the purple goes to start button
That's great but the blue may go to the temp but it does not..am I in as bad
Shape as I think or is there another harness type. It's a Catalina mklll 96.
Any ideas, thanks steve

 

[degreeoff]

I think what one cool air meant is use the ohm meter to check continuity, one long piece of wire with a probe or alligator clip and a shorter one, hook e'en to the meter and start checking where they go, when you find the two ends of the wire(s) in question it'll beeep.

There typically aren't that many wires in a 30

 

[onecoolair]

I think what one cool air meant is use the ohm meter to check continuity, one long piece of wire with a probe or alligator clip and a shorter one, hook e'en to the meter and start checking where they go, when you find the two ends of the wire(s) in question it'll beeep.

There typically aren't that many wires in a 30

Exactatacly!

 

[Bob S]

Steve,
Not sure if this will help. I wrote the colors I found on my boat.

 

[rbmcintire]

Bob's attachment is gold. With the Ohm meter in this case, just remember that you might read continuity through multiple wires due to them being connected to devices that are all grounded. If Steve has the harnesses, he can disconnect the plug connections at both locations (engine and panel) so as to just read the isolated wires only. Then, he can trace the wire to where it lands on the engine component and identify it's purpose.

Rob

 

[Glenn17467]

Steve,
Not sure if this will help. I wrote the colors I found on my boat.

I did the harness upgrade last year on my 84 C30. It took most of a day to figure out what was going on. There were two extra wires in the boat harness than in the upgrade and wire colors were not the same as diagrammed in the upgrade. Even the colors from the engine to the panel were not the same from start to finish. I am sure some repairs were made, but the harness to have extra wires? Even my control panel is not like anything I have seen.

 

[jrowan]

The Universal Diesel manual shows what the key 8 color coded circuits function is & wiring
schematic, based on the original harness that was used on the 5411 - M25 engines. Not sure which engine model you have on your boat, or if it is even a Universal. I have also owned Yanmars that also have a fairly simple wiring harness.

Check out page 17 of this manual, as Catalina tended to reuse the same design elements for decades on all of their models: