98 Nitro 185 Sport, No power to lights/bilge/radio/depthfinder/live wells/horn.

Hey everyone, I am having electrical problems with the lights/bilge/radio/depthfinder/live wells and horn. I have power to the motor and gauges on the dash. I have check all fuses under the dash and they are good. I do have a light brown wire that is part of the ignition harness that has a circle connection on the end not connected to anything. It was just dangling under the dash. It seems like it should connect to the back of one of the gauges? Just to see if it was a disconnected ground I ran a wire directly from the negative side of the battery to the wire, but didn't get power to anything. I have no clue were it connects.

Anyone have any clue what could be the problem?

The trolling motor does work when connected to battery.

light brown is likely the TAN wire and usually goes to the warning horn...and I'd guess what you call a circle connection is a bullet connector...

assuming the accessories in question are feed by the fuse block, do you have battery voltage at the input to the fuse block? (sometimes they use a MAIN switch that will isolate the fuse block...honestly its been a while since i was in one that old...if you have the +12VDC at the input to the fuse block and the fuses are good, then you need to make sure the ground wire(s) make it back to the battery.

makomark said:

light brown is likely the TAN wire and usually goes to the warning horn...and I'd guess what you call a circle connection is a bullet connector...

assuming the accessories in question are feed by the fuse block, do you have battery voltage at the input to the fuse block? (sometimes they use a MAIN switch that will isolate the fuse block...honestly its been a while since i was in one that old...if you have the +12VDC at the input to the fuse block and the fuses are good, then you need to make sure the ground wire(s) make it back to the battery.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I'm pretty sure the horn had both wires connected, it is right under the dash as well. I didn't even think to check the fuse block for voltage, I'll get out the multimeter and check it out. There is a 12v power plug I could check for voltage as well. Will there be one main ground running back to the battery? There are two black bullet connectors I connected to the negative terminal when I hooked up the battery.

Ok, broke out the multimeter and tested the fuse panel with the ignition key turned on. Got nothing, on the picture I tested the red/purple connection point and the connections on the other side of the panel with the black wires connected, assuming those are ground. The second picture shows the tan wire and the harness it is connected to. As you can also see in the first picture the horn has its own separate black and white wires. Tomorrow if I get the chance (helping someone move) I will run a ground directly from the panel to the negative terminal of the battery and check again. Getting late tonight.

your fuse panel should be hot w/o the key ON....

I'd suggest using your test light with the ground side connected to the battery...and then get the panel 'hot'....don't understand why they have TWO wires (assuming) to 'feed' the block. Can't tell from the pic what is on the LH side of the block...sometimes they provide a Ground bar, sometimes they don't.

If you don't have a common grounding point, for the accessories, you may want to consider it.

So, found a bad fuse on the hot wire connection at the battery. Replaced it and now the back live well switch is working. However, nothing else seems to have power. I assume in the top pic the red and purple wires connected with a nut are the Hot wire, but I can not get a voltage reading from it.

The left side connections are to a 12v plug like a cigarette lighter. It is on the 15amp fuse.

Ok, so knowing what the all the switches do probably would have been a big help. Apparently the far right switch is the Accessory power and if it is off there is no power to anything else! After swapping the fuse and turning on the Accessory power I now have power to both live wells and the bilge pump. I might still have issues with the navigation lights as the fuse that was good blew. I put a higher power fuse in it and the lights worked. Going to get some more 5 amp fuses and test if they will actually work or if they burn out. Pretty pumped to get everything working.

Sadly the radio (old cassette deck) powered on but couldn't turn it to FM and no sound coming from speakers. Probably just replace it as it is very outdated!

Thanks again for the help, I have already learned a lot about this boat in the last few days!

FWIW, make a good drawing of what you have (or have figured out)...it will come in handy down the road when the next issue develops...or when you want to add something.