New owner of a 2003 Hurricane FunDeck 218R with some electrical questions

cawllins

Hello everyone.  I just purchased a 2003 Hurricane FunDeck 218R on Friday.  I had it out all weekend and it's an amazing boat.  It has the Yamaha 150 VMAX 2 stroke fuel injected engine on it.  I purchased the boat knowing that it had a few electrical issues and I'm hoping that they turn into a ground problem or something easy to track down.  So the ignition and engine work perfectly.  The seller put a brand new battery in the boat but when I picked it up, the battery was dead.  The first night that I docked the boat, I noticed with everything off, the NAV Light switch was still slightly lit and then I noticed that the back lighting of the gauges was on.  None of the rocker switches appear to work.  So I started to do some small investigating today.  I ohm'd out the switches and the circuit breakers and they all appear to be fine.  I pulled the contacts off of the NAV switch and I noticed that the ACC and some other switches would then actually come on when I switched them.  The INT lights actually worked as well.  But I couldn't get the radio to work nor the front head lights.  I switched the main switch in the back to see what that does and it doesn't appear to switch off the power, only knocks it down to 9 volts, oddly enough.  I know I'm all over the map here trying to explain my problem but before I tear everything apart, I wanted to bounce it off of you guys to see if this sounds like a problem that someone else has seen or had.  Also, the NAV switch appears to be a three tier/pole switch and mine had a resister across two of the contacts, is this normal?  It looked factory but I was just wondering.  Anyway, some of my main questions are, my positive battery terminal has 4 rings on it, 3 small ones and a main battery cable, is this correct?  Should the main switch in the back above the battery compartment, be a complete kill switch?  Does anyone have any idea what the draw is on the battery just sitting there docked with nothing on?  I was showing 1.6A and this seemed high.  Anyway, happy to be a hurricane owner and look forward to hearing from you guys!

Thanks!

cawllins

Anyone have input?  How about some electrical schematics??  

nquirk

@cawllins, it would be best to get the electrical schematics for this boat as I'm not familiar with it and it will help isolate what came in the factory installation/wiring harness and what is after the fact.

Terri in Hurricane's Customer Support can hopefully provide those schematics.  tgipson@nauticglobalgroup.com

What first pop in mind to me reading your post is that you tested continuity of the switches and all seems fine but they don't appear to function that the shared ground that loops across each switch may be the culprit if all or most are non functioning.

The 3 position NAV switch is normal as you've suggested.

For the 4 rings on your positive battery.  Hard to tell without tracing them but my suggestions are:

1. large connection for your engine/starter

2. smaller one for the power switch to the switch panels to handle accessories

3. smaller one with a 4A or 5A in line fuse holder to handle float switch/auto switch on bilge pump

4. some additional accessory (fishfinder, aftermarket stereo, depth finder, etc)

Main switch handles all accessory power minus Items 1, 3 and possibly 4 (depending on its connect)

Draw on the battery at 1.6A when engine is off, ignition is off, and main switch is off?  Look to #4 whereas the power should be switched but is wired constant

Enjoy your Hurricane and I hope this helps you diagnose the issues you're having.

cawllins

@nquirk thank you so much for your response.  I think you're right about the grounding issue.  I for some reason couldn't get a solid 12v measurement between my positive from the battery and the grounding bar in the bottom of the helm.  I'm assuming that is a grounding bar anyway.  I was going to make a cable and attach it to the negative terminal and use that as my negative terminal when measuring voltage.  That would be the only way to assure that I'm getting a good ground when measuring positive voltage right?

nquirk

I forgot how the older Hurricanes are wired with ground bar vs the newer ground loop across the switches so remedy the ground bar, you remedy all grounds attached

Yes, if you test it with existing ground vs a known good ground, that should isolate any fluctuations in voltage along with determining if it is in fact a grounding issue.

 

cawllins

@nquirk I didn't have much time today to do thorough troubleshooting but I believe it's definitely a grounding issue.  My fuel sending unit was bad so I replaced that today and as soon as hooked all of the cables back up to the battery, I had 1.2 v at my fuel sending unit.  I don't believe I should see anything there!  I should only have a ground and the signal coming back from the unit.  So I took off all three of the auxiliary cables on the positive side of the battery and I only used the thick ignition cable and things started to work again.  I was able to turn on the interior lights, sound the horn, depth finder, and radio came on but didn't work.  I believe I'm starting to get somewhere.  My fuel gauge still doesn't work but I believe that's because the ground on the back of the gauge is screwed up.  I know my ohms are correct coming off my gauge but by the time they get to the back of the gauge, I'm seeing mega ohms so I'm losing my ground.  I'm also starting to think that maybe one of those three cables is a negative wire instead of a positive.  I didn't have any extra wire with me today to bring in a good negative and start grounding things and to be able to ohm my negative ground bar to the known negative terminal.  The one thing I did notice is that I don't see the large cable coming off of the negative terminal in the helm anywhere so I'm assuming that cable runs directly right to the motor which might confirm that one of those cables is supposed to be a negative. haha  It seems to help me to type this stuff out so thanks for being a sounding board to bounce this stuff off of.

nquirk

@cawllins.... IF you need an ear to bend, I'm listening (except on weekends when I'm out riding my Hurricane and not talking about it)

It quite possible that one of those is in fact a ground.  Test your voltage as you reconnect one at a time and then isolate the one that creates a draw.  Leave that one off, and then see what happens.  Then I'd trace it to it source and see what may the cause.

Note that one of the aux cables usually runs your auto on/float switch for your bilge pump so if your boat is sitting in water, you don't want that disconnect for an extended length of time (it usually has an inline fuse on it so easier to determine its is a positive connection and runs the bilge)

Looks like you're on the right path.  Keep us posted on the progress and drop any questions and we can all try to help as best as we can.

cawllins

Hey thank you very much!  I've been busy just enjoying my Hurricane and I haven't done any further troubleshooting. I'm pulling it off of the river tomorrow and once I have it back at my house that is when I plan on doing my wire tracing.  I'll keep you updated!

cawllins

Oh, and how strange is it that I have been pulling off all of the positive cables from my battery to make sure that nothing is draining the battery and when I went down to the boat yesterday, after about two weeks, the battery was dead.  It's a brand new interstate battery so I'm not sure how to explain the fact that it drained other than it being a bad battery.  I don't think there is anyway of a battery discharging through the negative terminal only. 

nquirk

@cawllins, you're correct.  A grounded battery should only be drained if in fact its problematic. 

Next step is getting that battery checked and load tested. (And if brand new, replaced under warranty)

The joys of owning a toy