1975 25hp evinrude won't crank over

[BUCKBUSTER13]

Just put battery in pontoon and tried to start motor but nothing happened. Have power to one side of starter solenoid. Motor cranked over when I jumped the 2 large terminals on solenoid. Pulled ignition switch to check for power there and had nothing. Shouldn't I have power there all the time? Lights hooked to ign switch worked when motor wasn't running so I think I should have power there constantly. Ran a jumper wire directly to ign switch from battery and motor turned right over. For some reason, power is not feeding ign switch from motor. Could I just run a fused wire from battery to ign switch & say the heck with it? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[joereeves]

Look at one of the smaller RED wires leading from the starter solenoid. You'll find a fuse holder there containing a short 20amp fuse (main power fuse). In all probability, it's blown, replace it.

If you by any chance hooked the battery up backwards even for a fraction of a second, that would possible blow it BUT the usual cause is shorting a hot wire to ground.

If that engine by any chance has a battery charging system (not likely), reversing polarity at the battery (hooked up backwards) would destroy the charging rectifier.

Thousands of parts in my remaining stock. Not able to list them all. Let me know what you need and I'll look it up for you. Visit my eBay store at:

http://stores.ebay.com/Evinrude-Johnson-Outboard-Parts-etc?refid=store