Well I got everything set up and went to start the motor, it turned over a few times but just wouldn’t kick through to idle. Since it wasn’t cranking I switched my perko to “ALL” to try and assist but that had zero effect. Eventually the battery was toast and I opened up the aft port settee to do something I’ve been procrastinating for 5 years and finally try to make sense of the rats nest of electrical wiring in that little locker. What I found was shocking on several levels.
I bought new batteries this year, and in what I can only blame on operator error, the deep cycle was in that aft locker and the cranking was in the forward port settee. I had the deep cycle connected to “1” on the perko switch ad the cranking on “2”. I usually start the motor on 1, which meant I have been using a deep cycle to start my motor every time since we moved east, which is obviously terrible for it.
Aside from that, the perko has every single positive circuit in the board wired directly to the common post, and every single negative was wired to the negative post on the deep cycle. There was an abhorrent mess of all those circuits bundled up adjacent to the battery sitting in the bilge, and when I shake them the lights flicker.
There’s a wiring diagram in sharpie on the bottom surface of the wood panel covering the access port: a crude rectangle representing the battery with a plus in the northeast corner and a minus sign in the northwest, an arrow with the word “BOW” pointing in the right direction, and next to the negative and positive signs: the words “9 rings” and “3 rings” respectively.
I looked down and the negative post had only (ha) 7 rings attached to it. Wondering where the other two were, I started digging around and found two 6awg black cables leading aft, which I though were somehow connected to the motor, but in reality just hanging out loose in the bilge, terminating in rings about two feet beyond where I could see.
I followed them forward to their origin, and to my surprise they were both attached to the same negative post on the wrongly-placed cranking battery up in the front! They wouldn’t have fit on the post on the deep cycle with all the other 14awg rings stacked on it, but had the cranking battery been it the right spot they would have fit there as the cranker has a slightly taller post.
I decided I need to fix this, I took the perko off to take look at and try to untangle each individual circuit, and found again doubled pair of 6awg cables were leading from the “2” post all the way to the forward battery. Whoever installed this 2nd battery went cheap and tried to decrease resistance by using doubled 6awg on both the positive and negatives, which after a little research I’ve found is questionably safe and definitely illegal as per ABYC standards.
So I untangled the mess, found 5 distinct circuits and taped each one with a different color of duct tape after jotting down the appliance and number on each one’s individual inline fuses.
Some YouTube searching on boat electrical wiring led me to designing and building a bus bar and fuse box system. One guy I found used a cheap HDPE cutting board as a mount. He screwed a 2x4 under the top surface of the bench near the HIN as a backing plate for the cutting board but that didn’t sit quite right with me so I found a pair of 8”x3”x2” blocks of HDPE on Amazon for $30.
I picked up some blue sea hardware, a150a 10 circuit bus bar and 100a 8 circuit mini fuse box from Fawcett’s, a bunch of stainless screw and bolts and washers from the local hardware shop, and a pair of cheap 18” red and black 4awg battery cables from West Obscene. After a few hours this morning stripping and crimping and screwing things together, it works!! ((The only question I have about the system is on the white circuit that leads up to the overhead light switch panel, there was a 6am glass inline fuse. I removed that and wired directly to its own channel on the fuse box, but there is no 6amp blade fuse so I went with a 5amp. This shouldn’t sacrifice any safety, correct? Just may blow out sooner than I wish? I thought about leaving the 6amp on and connecting it directly to the post but it wouldn’t look so clean.))
Pics show the before and after, I have to say I am quite pleased with the results. I put the crank battery, still pristine from never having been used, in its correct seat and on slot “1” on the perko. I have been trickle charging the deep cycle for about 24 hours but it’s still not charged, I think it may be a boat anchor now (kidding).
I got a hydraulic crimper, some 4awg wire and appropriate connectors on prime day coming in the mail tomorrow, so after heading to autozone I’ll have some fun learning how to make battery cables and have a new deep cycle installed on slot 2. I plan to rewire the entire boat at some point so $40 for a new tool is justified in my mind. All’s well that ends well.
Oh also it’s been insanely hot and humid in Maryland, especially in the direct sunlight starting at around 9am. My wife found a sun shade tarp while shopping the other day, and my stern points directly into the sunrise. I hoisted one corner on the topping lift, passed it behind the backstay, and ball bungeed the other three corners to the life lines. It’s been a godsend. I think the whisker pole strapped to the boom sitting in the mast support post will make a wonderful shade tent when at anchor. Thanks for reading my blogpost!
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