2002 mercury 50 wiring meltdown

bought this tracker boat few months back shes got merc 50 EPTO. she ran GREAT all day like 5 or 6 times out. then yesterday she was runnin fine then lost power then recovered then a bit later big power loss was running about 50%. pull cover and wow was like OMFG . seems we had quite the meltdown around the solenoid. several of the wires coming from the "brain box" the insulation was totally melted off and they were touching, the wires. cut them all back to where nothing was openly touching and was quite surprised that she fired right up and runs out to but only about 50% of power. its a 2002 mercury ELPTO 50.

my question is what could of caused such a meltdown and what parts should i try to replace etc etc. any help greatly appreciated!

It "could" be a bad voltage regulator that is putting out gobs of power. It could also be a bad stator that put out gobs of power and cooked the voltage regulator which then in turn put out gobs of power.

You can fire it up and check the voltage coming out of the regulator (measure from the lead going over to the starter and any good ground point on the block).

If the voltage is above 14.5 volts Merc says to replace the voltage regulator (ouch 145 bucks).

Other things that could have damaged the regulator, besides a wild stator, can/could be 1) running the motor without a battery hooked up or 2) running with battery connected but corroded connector (the voltage from the regulator has to go "somewhere" or it will eat itself).

BEFORE you simply replace the regulator, if the voltage tests bad, you NEED to figure out what the cause of the failure was in the first place. Yes, it could have simply gone bad, but if something else triggered the failure and you simply replace the "result" you will end up with another toasted regulator is short order.

If in doubt, take her to a shop and have the stator voltage (on the charge side of things) tested. The cost of the test could save you buying a "second" 150 buck regulator...

thanks for your help! when i bought the boat i replaced the batteries and on the hot side there were like 7 or 8 wires and i noticed one of them had gotten real hot to where the insulation
was melting off. i was like oh i just wont connect that wire and if she runs and all guages and stuff work then i dont need it right? LOL! i would almost guess thats what caused the regulator to blow.
but she ran great several days out so maybe it was failing slowly i dont know. i talked to a mobile mechanic yesterday and he said i can test the stator with a meter just cranking the motor. and yes it looks like im going to have to buy and rewire a voltage regulator but like you said i need to figure out WHAT blew it to begin with.

question... since it is still running is it possible to just bypass the whole dam thing and just run it without the charging system working. i have way more amps in my batts than i use all day i dont troll much just usually run out and fish right there maybe troll around a little but not alot. it apears as though as long as there is power comin off the batts then the motor will run even at half power shes still planning out cruising along. i guess the stator cant run unplugged because that power needs to go somewhere?

Yes, you can get rid of the charge side. You will also loose any of the wires feeding into the harness/coming up to the dash so you would have to possibly rewire a bit (get some "hot wires" up to the dash and a common ground/bond back to the neg side of the battery) and you would lose the tach).

What you need is an "Terminal Block" (merc part number 86-638131 - under 2 bucks) You just mount it on the block somewhere convenient and run the two stator wires that "normally" feed the voltage regulator to the two posts on the insulator (one to each post).

This takes the power from the charge coils on the stator and simply sends it off to ground (protecting the stator).

This used to be typical on manual models (pull cord start) that also regularly came with electric start - they simply isolated the charge side of things rather than build a whole different stator "without" the charge coil.

ok well thats good to know it can run with all that bypassed. from what i can tell it looks like 2 big hot wires come into the engine, one goes right to the starter and the other goes to wiring harness. i noticed there are some wires that come out of the stator to the coil packs. is the stator supplying power to the coils so that once she is kicked off the stator will feed power to run the engine? and what about the rev limiter box? how will it wire in? so if i wanted to bypass the charge side how would i wire it? remove the regulator and all the wires to it and keep a big wire to the starter and run another wire to the solenoid to start it and terminate the stator wires into the terminal block you mentioned?