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Melted Stator and Regulator - Next steps?

J

jhawker23

New member
I have a '95 115 Mercury.


I was on a two mile run back to the dock and was headlong into white caps the entire way so it was a bumpy trip. As I approached the cove, the temp alarm went off intermittently. I was peeing water with a strong output. I loaded up and was at camp in less than 5 minutes. After about 10 minutes I smelled an intensely putrid burning odor. I then see the white smoke rolling out of the engine.


I took the cover off and the stator was bubbling, the regulator burned a hole through its bottom.


So I've received the new regulator and put it on. I'm waiting on the stator. In the meantime, I "cleaned up" the stator, cutting away all of the melted material and sanding back to original size. I had resistance out of the stator within specs. I put it all back together and thought I could just bypass the stator and pray for a start. But I get no spark. I've tried it completely disconnected. I've tried it with both yellows disconnected and the blue/white and white/blue connected.


I've got 12.5 V at the battery and 11-12 V during crank.


This engine also has an adapter in-line out of the stator.


Is there more troubleshooting I can do to find faulty components while waiting for the stator? Of course we'd like to enjoy the lake on the 4th but by the time the stator arrives, there won't be much time to get additional parts.


If I smoked the stator and regulator to that point, are there some high percentage components that would also be damaged? stator.jpgstator 2.jpgregulator.jpg
 
I don't understand what you mean when you say "bypass the stator and pray for a start".

The stator serves two functions - one part of it provides the power that ultimately fires the spark plugs. The second, separate part (although it's one unit, there are two different, independent sets of windings) produces the power that is (rectified) and used to charge the battery.

So if your stator was melted it's not surprising that you can't get anything to spark.

It sounds like (possibly) your rectifier died (either of old age or a bad connection to the battery). If the rectifier is not passing on the power being generated by the charge side of the stator, the windings in the stator will overheat (just like an electric heater produces heat because the power being put into the coils has nowhere to "exit", so it heats up).

The result is a melted stator, which probably corrupted the ignition side of the stator as well.

I would suspect it was the heat from the stator that heated your block enough to cause the over heat alarm and (probably) not a cooling issue.

At this point I would simply wait for the stator and see if that corrects the "lack of spark" problem.

Before firing it back up make sure you have the battery connected and that there is no short in the cables. You don't want to cook everything for a second time for something as simple as a poor battery connection.
 
galamb said:
I don't understand what you mean when you say "bypass the stator and pray for a start".

The stator serves two functions - one part of it provides the power that ultimately fires the spark plugs. The second, separate part (although it's one unit, there are two different, independent sets of windings) produces the power that is (rectified) and used to charge the battery.

So if your stator was melted it's not surprising that you can't get anything to spark.

It sounds like (possibly) your rectifier died (either of old age or a bad connection to the battery). If the rectifier is not passing on the power being generated by the charge side of the stator, the windings in the stator will overheat (just like an electric heater produces heat because the power being put into the coils has nowhere to "exit", so it heats up).

The result is a melted stator, which probably corrupted the ignition side of the stator as well.

I would suspect it was the heat from the stator that heated your block enough to cause the over heat alarm and (probably) not a cooling issue.

At this point I would simply wait for the stator and see if that corrects the "lack of spark" problem.

Before firing it back up make sure you have the battery connected and that there is no short in the cables. You don't want to cook everything for a second time for something as simple as a poor battery connection.
Click to expand...


:cool: Excellent and thorough response Graham, thank you. What I wasn't finding was the education the stator also produced the spark, not just charging. I'll hang on for the stator and see where I need to go from there. Hopefully nowhere but the lake.
 
There's an adapter in-line of stator output. Is there a way to determine if this needs replaced prior to receiving the stator? It does not come with the adapter.
 
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