Penta 2002 battery shorting on start

[sjconnor]

Hi,

Have you ever had a strange feeling that what you were about to do was probably not a good idea and then went ahead and did it anyway ? and sure enough you should have listened to that niggling feeling you had. Well that happened to me on Sunday. I was about to start my engine (Penta 2002) which always starts easily. and as the key ignition system was a little stiff I sprayed inside it with WD40, quite a lot. The key moved easily then as I went to start - nothing. I went to look at the battery meter and it showed it was completely empty - it was fine before I tried starting it.

I sprayed some electrical contact spray inside after to try to clear out the WD40 (well it was similar to WD40 anyway). But the battery had no juice. Later I switched over to the house battery and it started ok. But later in the day, neither battery would be able to start the engine. Then strangely when I flicked the voltage test meter for the Engine battery it went way off the gage (I think its max 15V on the gage) I do have a solar panel which would have been charging that battery automatically but I was concerned about the high voltage and so disconnected that battery.

So I'm kinda hoping that this will have mysteriously fix itself and that I may have caused a short inside the ignition switch which now would have dried out completely.

But am keen to hear any thoughts on this, whether that would potentially be the cause and any advice on how I should look to troubleshoot this on my next trip to the boat.

Many thanks,
Simon.

 

[Loren Beach]

"Round up the usual suspects"

Leaping easily and maybe too rapidly to a conclusion.... I suspect that key switch.
Then again, maybe a coincidence...., but I note that when the police investigate a crime scene they never believe in coincidences.

 

[Tom Metzger]

A couple of thoughts. The WD-40 didn't cause the switch to short out the batteries. Had the batteries shorted out through the switch there most likely would have been lots of smoke & heat. The voltmeter pegged which would indicate the solar panel was disconnected from the batteries. The panel will put out 18+ volts open circuit.

The first thing that comes to mind because of both batteries being involved is the battery switch or it's connections. Lots of other loose connections in the battery circuits could also cause the problem. The batteries are as good as they were last week.

The good news is that I suspect you are a victim, not the guilty party.

 

[supersailor]

What is the evidence of shorting?

 

[sjconnor]

Loren - the key switch is only about 3 years old, although I wont rule that out for sure.

Tom - there definitely wasn't any smoke at the switch and will clean all the battery and switch connections first

Supersailor - there wasn't any visible evidence of shorting. I suspected shorting when I saw the sudden loss of voltage in the battery.

So I'll first of all clean and reattach all the connectors to the battery and switch. Then I'll follow this process I found in Nigel Calders Boat Owners Mechanical and Electrical

 

[EGregerson]

ignition

You've got to clean the wd40 off the contacts inside the ignition somehow. I don't know what to recommend; I just dropped $250 on a VP ignition module so....be careful. maybe contact VP on what to clean the points/contacts with; see what they recommend. btw; my solar panels charge at 17 volts. Fair winds.

 

[supersailor]

message deleted.

 

[Tom Metzger]

I would suggest that trying to clean the contacts on an ignition switch is a fool's errand. The WD-40 won't hurt the switch as much as trying to clean it, IMHO.

The contacts wipe - make a sliding contact by design - which makes the contacts self cleaning.

 

[sjconnor]

Problem solved

Well after initially starting to trace the main cables to the starter solenoid with the intention of starting to clean the contacts I noticed that the relay had shaken loose and dropped out completely. Plugging that back in solved the problem. The engine battery was found to be practically dead but that was charged up pretty quickly and all is good again.

Thanks for all the advice, fortunately this time I was luck this was an easy fix.