Ok - I am stumped and need some help please - Pump Wiring

[Keith Knecht]

Maybe I'm missing something here.  In your drawing, do you show a positive sitting on the pump waiting on a negative to complete the circuit? In my experience the device on a boat has a negative sitting on it all of the time waiting for a plus.  In older electronics, things would be waiting for a ground to work but not a good idea in a boat.  The first boat I ever owned I wired with pluses sitting on everything and I switched the grounds.  Imagine my consternation during the first bad rainstorm that I went through and everything on the boat started running.  It picked up the ground from the water.  So my first question would be are you switching plus or minus? The best way to trouble shoot is to remember that once the circuit is completed the device works, everything being equal. So, with a negative sitting on your pump, it only takes a positive on the other side to make it run.  Make sure that you have a good ground and then test the plus at each switch.  Your long jumper wire or a meter will do just fine.

[dbiscayne]

I'm betting on a bad wire from the switch.  That black stuff you scraped off is no good, even if you scraped it off clean at the butt connector you've now lost the tin coating that marine wire normally has.

[gran398]

We all agree on one thing as a test...bypass the switch with a straight run of 10-12  guage wire.

 The pump is pulling some power.... and requires clean voltage over a long run.

A nickel says the auto feed wire run is much shorter on the positive side than the switch feed.

[Bergertime]

Ok.. well I finally got it working!!!  Thanks to all for your suggestions and quick help.  Here's what happened.  And btw- it was something simple but a little counter intuitive.

Got home last night and pulled my girl out of storage and once again started the trouble shooting.  I cut the butt connector in half that connects all the + wires leaving the + feed from the float switch and the + wire to the pump connected and crimped on one end.  This was done so that if I had more problems I would not waste any more wire keeping the float operational as I had already crimped and re-done these a couple of times.   Some liquid electrical tape would have sealed the exposed end temporarily if needed.   That bilge pump is way down there and I don't want to have to lower myself in there if I don't have to...

Ran an above deck jumper from my + power buss from under the helm back to the hatch and touched the exposed end of the butt connector and presto... bilge pump comes to life!  Not surprising but it along with running the same test with the jumper wired to the switch did rule out a couple other possibilities.

As I started to resign myself to the fact that I was going to have to run a new wire I was investigating using the existing brown wire to pull my new one back through the chase tube but after some looking the wise people at Aquasport taped the entire length of the wire bundle before running through the chase tube back to the transom.  Urrg!, a fish tape would be required which I don't own thus ending efforts for the night.  

So...  I was cleaning up my tools and I had an idea.  Since I was going to have to replace the brown wire to the helm I decided I was going to try it one more time.   I cut another 4-5 inches off the wire and left just enough to make the necessary connections, stripped and touched it to the exposed butt connector... Success!! It worked  

The only thing that I can think of is that the final section of wire that I cut off had some defect or issue that was not allowing enough current (amps) to run the pump but allowing 12.8v to be read. I did not notice anything wrong with it but without a doubt it was the culprit.  Smiling ear to ear I crimped, heat-shrinked and wire-tied everything back to standard and she works fine now.

Again – Thanks for the quick response all.

Calm Water, Tight Lines and of course Perseverance  

Bruce

[Georgie]

Absolutely HATE tracing those "hidden" dead spots in long run of wire.   :evil:   Glad yours was near the terminal and you were able to reattach without splicing or replacing!

Congrats Bruce

[Bergertime]

Ryan -

So true... It ended up being simple just a twisted road to get there!  Seems it's a often a common theme.

B

[floridamisser52]

This was a most excellent post. well thought out in terms of the trouble shooting process , well articulated , easy to understand and read. Not to mention we even got a wiring diagram This whole post was boat electrical 101 and will be helpful. I've got the exact problem on my 175, but its the auto portion  not working. Based on this post I think I can work through it

[seabob4]

This was a most excellent post. well thought out in terms of the trouble shooting process , well articulated , easy to understand and read. Not to mention we even got a wiring diagram This whole post was boat electrical 101 and will be helpful. I've got the exact problem on my 175, but its the auto portion  not working. Based on this post I think I can work through it

Report back with results...

[floridamisser52]

This was a most excellent post. well thought out in terms of the trouble shooting process , well articulated , easy to understand and read. Not to mention we even got a wiring diagram This whole post was boat electrical 101 and will be helpful. I've got the exact problem on my 175, but its the auto portion  not working. Based on this post I think I can work through it

Report back with results...

Will do.

[futch13]

You guys don't know me from Adam but hopefully you will soon as I'm getting ready to start a 1981 24' Proline Flatback restore and was hoping to be able to post questions and updates in the restore forum.  I just ran across this thread.  I've been a marine mechanic for 27 yrs and have found that when checking for pump issues after verifying that you have 12v and grd with a volt meter, use an old school incandescent test light to check for amperage.  First put it across the battery to see the glow of the light at full power, then check connections from one end to the other.  The glow of the light will dim or go out when you have passed the bad spot.  You can check both power and grd this way by just changing the clip from the neg to pos post on battery.

Sorry I didn't see it earlier, maybe would have saved some time

Loye