FormulaM2Formula

Hi All,

I took the 382 out to Lake Havasu this past weekend. Put the boat in 10 AM on Saturday, pulled it out around 2 PM on SUnday. Spent the night anchored in a cove.

When I pulled the boat out, I noticed that the props had a white chalky look to them instead of the nice shiny look going in. I thought that was really weird since I have never had that happen before. I did a little research and it all points to a possible problem with not having the drives grounded properly allowing electrolisis to put deposits on the props.

I pulled the cover off the stellings extension box (to look at something else, but that is another thread) and saw a wire in the bottom of the box, spliced with a butt connector laying in 2" of water. I haven't had time to figure out what the wire is for, but I'm wondering if it might be the ground wire for the drive that is likely not doing a good job anymore because I'd bet money that the connection in the butt connector is corroded. I didn't have time to work on it because it was V-Day and my girlfriend came over. Thought it best to stop working on the boat until the weekend.

Any ideas? have you ever seen props chalk up like this before? Corrosion due to an electrical issue is the only thing I can dig up. I'm planning to investigate the wires more carefully and fix the butt connectors.

This is Corey's (Lonestar382) boat that I bought recently. The stellings boxes were added when he bought the boat. I'm wondering if the dealer just spliced an extra length of wire on to solve the ground issue and used a butt connector. I'm doubtful that Formula would ship it like that.

Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thx,
Garrett

PhantomChaos

It's just lime deposits and it comes right off. It is not damaging. That water is full of minerals.....very hard. Just spray some Lime-Away and wipe if off.

outlawinil

Same thing at LOTO

FormulaM2Formula

Yikes, I must be paranoid.

I'll try it before I go wild adding ground wires.

Thanks for the info!!!

BTW, where/what is LOTO? I've seen references to it a few times.

Thanks,
Garrett

outlawinil

Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri

FormulaM2Formula

Well, the props might just have hard water deposits, but after checking out the drives more, I now know what the wires are for that were in teh water.

On each drive, one of the connectors was totally corroded away. It turns out that the wires are going to the Mercathode unit on the bottom of the transom unit (not the extension box). So, neither mercathode unit is working. I also checked out the 500 EFI and Bravo parts and service manuals and found that there are supposed to be ground straps going back to the drives even with extension boxes.

I can do a water proof splice on the mercathode units and hook it together with connectors inside the boat where they won't get wet assuming the remaining 5" of wire on the units isn't corroded inside the insulation.

I'm doing this repair and the ground straps today along with some other maintenance type stuff. I bought all the stuff yesterday, so I better start hoppin'.

Audiofn

If your wire is corroded you can still solder it by using flux. Then make sure that after you use the flux that you wash the wire well. The Flux i acidic and will corode your wires. I ussually solder with silver solder as it has a lower melting point and no rosin/flux.

Jon

FormulaM2Formula

Hi Jon,

THanks for the pointers. Man, getting the wires back upinto the transom unit and extension boxes was a major PITA. It was the worst part of the job.

I soldered the wires, put anti-ox on it, put heat shrink tubing around it, and sealed the ends of the heatshring with liquid electrical tape. This was on the splices that are sitting in the water. I then put spade connectors w/ anti-ox on them, heatshrink over the ends of the connectors, and anti-ox in the connectors to make the final connection above the water line. It'll be easy to take apart and put back together from now on.

If it corrodes again on the splices, I'm going to put new Mercathodes in. The new ones will have long enough wires that I can connect them up high out of the water.

I'm tall and relatively thin. I could barely get my hand down inside the extension box to pull the wires. I have cuts bruises all over. Thought I was going to have to call my girlfriend. The water in the bottom was all greasey from the drive shaft grease. Nasty, slippery. Couldn't grip the wires. I was irritated by the time I got that done.

I put ground wires on as spec'ed in the Mercruiser manuals out to the drive. The starbd side transom plate was grounded to the engine, but the port wasn't, so I fixed that too. I added cables from the transom plate to the drive inside the extension box. Looks professional, even if I do say so myself.

Garrett

382 newbie

Yeah but what we really want to know is how was the speed....did you get it to what you wanted?

FormulaM2Formula

I tested my Mercathode system this weekend. I bought the $135 tester from Mercruiser. It looks like a plastic tube, a fishing weight, 6 feet of 16 guage red wire, a piece of bare stainless wire, some solder, a resistor and some glue. About $5 worth of junk I figure.

Anyway, I tested both sides and they both read about 830 to 840 mV which according to the doc referenced in the link here makes it right on.

http://www.boatfix.com/merc/Servmanl/11/11a7r5x.pdf

If you are ever in Phoenix, I'll rent you my tester for $50 bucks per drive.

Garrett