1997 88 Spl Evinrude - Electrical issue

[smallcal]

Mechanical I can handle, electrical not so much!

Got the boat out of storage, recharged the battery (went to 100% based on charger readings - done in my garage, no where near the boat), bolted it in, tried to start it and that's when the fun happened. Turned it over 3-4 times for no more than 5 seconds each time, looked at the battery and there was some vapor/smoke coming from positive side. Not sure why, but tried it one more time but this time after turning the key to off, the starter would engage for 1-2 seconds, then turn off and continued to do so until the battery leads were pulled. When the connection nuts fell to the floor of the boat, they were both hot enough to melt the carpet.

Has anyone ever seen this?

Any ideas where to start looking? Short, bad battery, bad starter? Any one of the three?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you.

 

[joereeves]

Hot connections are cause by either a "Pushed on" loose connection, a tight but dirty (corroded) connection, or internally flawed (again corroded) cables.

I did, in my many years of OMC experience, have one battery that was internally flawed in some manner and actually exploded. Other than that one bad battery, all other encounters such as you describe were as my above cable statement.

To test the starter... with a good known fully charged battery and good known jumper cables, run the jumper cables directly to the starter. If the starter cranks the engine over normally, then obviously the starter is okay.