wiring for starter button problem

I have a 1987 evinrude 9.9 E10ECUE. I have a two prong push start button with a hot wire running from the starter to the switch and a hot wire from the other side of the switch to the battery, then the ground from the motor straight to the battery. Tied into the hot wire from the switch to the battery i have an in-line fuse. i tried to start it with a 20 fuse as soon as it started to turn it blew the fuse, so i tried a 25 fuse and the same thing. did i wire things up wrong? why does it keep blowing the fuse? I also have 12 gauge wire run, should i have used 10 gauge?

It sounds like it is wired correctly. The hot wire from the switch should be activating a solenoid on the starter, which itself is a switch that closes the positive circuit from battery positive to starter positive. Normally, it takes little power to activate that solenoid. But, if you are blowing 20 amp fuses, then it sounds like you may have a bad solenoid., or that you starter is not hooked up correctly. If you post your question on the Johnson/Evinrude forum on this site, you may get a more detailed analysis. Just go to "Forum Home" at the top of this page.

2X chawk....run the wire from the button to the starter solenoid, not directly to the starter. Most solenoids will draw less than 20 amps (for their coil's current draw) so you are likely to be tied diectly to the starter

Not sure how well this picture will come through, but this is the basic system. See picture below. When wired correctly, turning on the key switch activates the solenoid (which is simply a switch) that allows current to run from the battery to the starter. The solenoid will have 3 or 4 posts. One post will be large, and will have a large red wire coming straight from the positive side of the battery. The second post will also be large, and with have a thick wire running from the solenoid to the starter. The third post will be small, and that is where the wire from your starter switch connects. There may also be a fourth post on the solenoid for the ground wire as shown in the diagram below. To test the starter solenoid and starter, with the key switch off, just run a jumper wire from the battery positive to the small positive post on the solenoid, bypassing the key switch, and that should close the circuit to the starter and the engine should turn over. Let us know what you find.

You must have a solenoid installed, preferably a 40 Amp or larger depending on how long your cable run is from battery.

it sounds to me like he does NOT have a solenoid wired in....putting the starter directly through the switch will blow the switch too eventually...

Yep - you may be correct. Initially, it didn't occur to me that he may have wired from switch to main starter terminal. Just don't know at this point.