Thread: Marine electrical trouble shoot

Should of paid more attention in physics when we were doing electrics...

Anyway my jetboat keeps blowing fuses, its been the bilge first but today it blew the fuses for the gauges.

It was "professionally" wired recently but I don't want to take it back to them.

Any trouble shooting ideas? Bilge pumps are obviously very important Pics to come

Probably best to take it back and have a chat. Might have been a slack apprentice or other simple mistake.
Otherwise you are going to have to pay someone else to fix it.

Not much of a sparky myself, but the random nature of your fault maybe related to the way that boats bounce around.
May simply be a loose terminal somewhere, a grounding issue, faulty reg. If theres any relay switches, they can also pack up gradually, giving these random faults.
I usually keep spare relays for on my machinery, been stranded in middle know where because of relays. never again.

Well the gauges ended up being a loose wire so those are fixed..

Pulled one bilge pump and its stuffed, seized up so I'm thinking that is what is blowing the bilge fuse. Will leave my auto one in and hopefully goes all good tomorrow

Originally Posted by PerazziSC3

Well the gauges ended up being a loose wire so those are fixed..

Pulled one bilge pump and its stuffed, seized up so I'm thinking that is what is blowing the bilge fuse. Will leave my auto one in and hopefully goes all good tomorrow

I was just going to post are you sure something on the circuits is not seized or come loose as that is a common in my experience in Jets over the years .I run silicone around all fittings to combat the vibrations & bashing they get & carry a water proof case loaded with spare fuses to get you back to the truck in case something rubs through etc (sneaking in the kitchen & pinching one of the missus 200 tupperware containers when ever water proof containers for the boat is needed is a Jet Boaters right of passage) . Only get the better bilge pumps as they cop a flogging & l carry a spare & set them up with a water proof plug so they can be swapped out if they shit themselves while you are up the river in tight spots.

Have a great blast tmrw

I’m pleased you’ve sorted it, I’ll leave a trick for finding a short circuit in a low voltage system.
Wire a head light bulb across a blown fuse and plug it it the faulty circuit. The bulb will carry enough current to run most things but will go from dim to full brightness if a short is present. Play with the wires or on plug things until the bulb goes dim, short found. The bulb will also limit the current to prevent burning the wires.