The long and short of it is that I think I need a new battery, but I want to present the scenario to you guys.
Took the boat out this weekend, Pathfinder with a 250 4 stroke Yamaha. Stopped to fish for an hour and had just the radio and livewell on. Tried to started up, and the battery was so weak it would not turn over the engine. Used my job pack in order to get it started and everything seemed to work fine ran it for 1 hour and went home. The next day, battery again was so weak I had to jump it.
BUT, this time, things were very strange. Once it was running, and I was going about 45 miles an hour, I’ll try to trim the engine up slightly, and it acted like it was going to suddenly shut off, just about threw me out of the boat when I pressed the trim button. All of the electronics, radio, and GPS, went out immediately. I only press the trim button for a split second but as soon as I let it go, the engine went back up to where it was which was about 4000 RPM.
Does that sound normal for a dying battery? I would think that once the engine is running all the electronics, pressing the tilt button wouldn’t cause the engine to cut out.
What gives? Battery is 4 years old. I don’t mind one bit buying a new one, but the whole scenario was very unusual I thought and I want to make sure you guys didn’t think it needed further evaluation. Plan obviously is to replace the battery and see if the symptoms continue. Any help would be great!
The first thing I would do is get a multi meter and check the voltage. A fully charged battery should have about 12.6 volts. If it is a wet cell battery, and not sealed, check the water level in each cell. If you need to add water, use only distilled water. There are others on here that know way more than me, but that is where I would start. You can also use google to learn more about batteries than you probably care to know. Good luck!
First guess - bad connection between motor and battery.
A bad connection or rotted cable will cause high resistance. In a good system, a fully charged battery shows high resistance. So, bad connections or cable fool the motor charging system into thinking it has a fully charged battery and it stops trying to charge it.
Your battery might be OK. No way to tell without a load test. But, pull the battery and put it on a trickle charger. Inspect battery cables for damage and clean connectors to bright metal. Once battery is fully charged, take it to an auto parts store and get it load tested. They’ll usually test for free so they can sell you a new battery if the old one is bad. If it is bad, buy a new on. If it is still good, clean the posts/connections to bright metal and put it back in the boat.
Unless I’m completely wrong. Interweb diagnosis is worth what you paid for it.
17’ Henry O Hornet w/ Johnson 88 spl
26’ Palmer Scott project hull
14’ Bentz-Craft w/ Yamaha 25
How old is the battery? My bad, I see now at the end of your post you said it was 4 years old. That is about all I ever get out of a battery. Replace it.
Also, think about a second battery for your accessories. That way your cranking battery won’t be doing double duty. In my 16’ Lund, I have 3 batteries. One battery just for cranking & nav. lights, one for my bait tank, fish finder, radio, etc., and one just for my trolling motor. And if my cranking battery goes, I have two others to jump off of.
Bob Van Gundy
Marine Designs,Inc.
Custom Aluminum Fabrication
803-727-4069
Happy Bob and I think alike , I have 4 with on board charging …
1 is cranking and engine gauges
2 electronics and radio
3 trolling motor
4 pumps and lights
I also keep a short set of jumpers should I need to switch to another
battery…
Do a thorough connection clean/check and use corrosion protection on all terminals , pre and mid season … Not much worse than dead on
the water and 30 miles from dock…IMO:frowning_face:
is the motor charging the battery?
the symptoms you described are exactly what will happen with a weak battery, but is the battery bad or is the motor not recharging the battery
my son and I just mounted a terrova 112# thrust on our new sea hunt. that is a 36 volt system so now we have 5 batteries on board. three group 29 deep cycle and two group 27 cranking. most of the time we move the perko switch to both so that we are charging both cranking batteries as we go. also; we changed out our 2bank to a professional brand 3 bank charger/maintainer for the trolling batteries. I guess we will move the two bank to the back for the cranking batteries. This 2011 BX22PRO is fantastic. have not had the chance to use it much but it really cuts the water like a dream. This should be my last boat. i am sure that my son Jeremy will take this over some day. then again; hope to be around long enough to wear this one out. ha ha ha
COOLBREEZE
DO OURSELF A FAVOR A DO NOT RUN THE ENGINE ON “ALL”
YES, YOU ARE CHARGING BOTH BATTERIES AT TEH SAME TIME, BUT IF YOU EVER HAVE A FAILURE, YOU ARE GOING TO KILL BOTH BATTERIES AT TEH SAME TIME, KIND OF DEFEATING THE PURPOSE OF THE 2 BATTERY SYSTEM.
IN THE MORNING CRANK ON 1 BATTERY, IF ITS STARTS STRONG, YOU KNOW THAT BATTERY IS CHARGED, IMMEDIATELY SWITCH TO OTHER BATTERY. SOMETIME DURING THE DAY, SWITCH BACK TO THE BATTERY YOU STARTED WITH. THAT WAY BOTH BATTERIES ARE GETTING CHARGED, BUT IF SOMETING HAPPENS, YOU HAVE A FULLY CHARGED BATTERY IN RESERVE.
Chris; thanks for the tip. i should know this being a past interstate sales mgr. just not thinking correctly i guess. i am not sure if it is a case of Alzheimers or Anheusers. pretty sure that it is one or the other. ha ha. thanks again. Makes perfectly good sense to me.
I had a very similar situation with my F150. Per someone’s advice, I removed the ground wire from the engine block, sanded down the post where it attaches, re-attached the ground wire, and problem solved. That was 2 years ago. When they build their engines and paint them, it seems that Yamaha doesn’t do a very good job of removing the paint from the post before attaching the ground wire so you end up with a somewhat bad ground.
On my motor, this post is located on the port side of the engine towards the front.
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-The size of a fish is directly proportional to the time between when it’s lost and the story is told. - Me
-What’s the best eating fish, you ask? I’ve found that for a lot people, its the ones that they happen to be able to catch, clean, and cook. - My Dad
-Until you have loved a dog, part of your soul remains unawakened. Anatole France (paraphrased)
-RIP my “Puppy Dog” 10/15/2004 - 1/14/2013. I’ll never forget him. What a special friend he was.
-Team Gonna Fish
