Need thunderbolt help

Hello, Im trying to fix a friends outboard for my boat, I get it running and i get to use it on my own boat. Thusly this has to happen. Its a Mercury 9.8 "thunderbolt" ignition thats old enough to have the old style fuel connector, but new enough to have an ugly pixellated stripe on the side(late 80s?). Thunderbolt ignition system is not producing a spark. Half of the wires were cracked and corroded, i have replaced those along with a visibly bad kill switch, still nothing. Any suggestions? this might be one for the grey hairs

There were several different electronic ignitions for that motor, so you need to tell me which one you have. Basically:

1. Coils at the back but no spark box: Phase Maker (bad news)

2. Coils at the back and a spark box: Lightning Energizer (good news-unless the spark box is shot).

If it's the former, pull the flywheel and clean the points. You MIGHT get lucky. (And if it's a Phase Maker, note that the kill switch MUST be grounded for it to run--not visa-versa).

Jeff

im going to say it is the spark box type. its got 2 coils on the back with a black box that has 2 brown, 1 tan(i think it is faded orange) 4 green and one ground coming out of it. once it is not a holiday anymore im going to swap that thing out.

At this point Im primarily concerned with the 3 coil looking things up under the flywheel, 2 stationary 1 moves with the spark advance. Then its looking like i have to dynatap a stripped head bolt

If it has 9.8 on the cowl (and not a model 110), it will have the early Thunderbolt 4 ignition for sure (even the model 110's between 1974-78 had the T4's).

So, to quote Jeff, that could be good/bad. Good because the T4 ignition is reliable, bad because this is an early one and the newer parts can't be used on older models, but the older parts are mostly available (kinda/sorta).

The 3 coil thingy is actually two different parts. The two stationary coils are the stator (no longer produced, but still in stock at many dealers), sells for about 35 bucks. The part that moves is the trigger. This is no longer available at all, so if it's shot you would be looking to someone with old stock or used parts. Listed for about 80 bucks back when it was available.

The black box is the "switchbox". Again, production is ceased but still currently in stock (but with a pricetag of $265).

Your first move should be to get ahold of a Seloc's manual (Mercury Outboard, Volume 1, 1965-1991 1- and 2-Cylinder, Tune up and repair manual) - sells for $35 on this site and others in both printed and electronic format.

In the appendix it gives the test procedure for doing resistance tests on the startor, trigger and coils (can't test the switchbox). If one of the components fails the resistance test you definately know it's bad. If all pass, they still could be defective. At that point they need to be tested with a DVA equipped meter and their actual voltage compared to the chart.

You can't test these with a normal voltmeter. The ignition produces AC - the DVA (converts) it to persistant DC which can be measured and then checked against the chart. In this ignition it's the switchbox that rectifies the AC to DC, stores it in a capacitor, and releases it to the appropriate coil/plug when the trigger tells it to - the DVA does "rectifying" when testing.

If the DVA tests are good - replace the switchbox (and at close to 300 bucks with tax, depending where you live, you want to make sure everything else is fine before you swap it out).

Keep the faith--you could have gotten stuck with one of those horrid "Phase Maker" nightmares (the problems of electronic ignition AND points combined).

Jeff