Evinrude 115 Ignition Alarm

[jsylvester08]

Its that time of the year again to clean her up and get her ready for the fishing season. Today i hooked up the battery to get the engine preped and ready to go but as soon as i turned the key to the first position there was a piercing sound from the "ignition alarm". It was 1 long sound that did not stop till i turned the key back. I did not start the engine up today because of the noise but does anyone have any idea why this would be going off? could it be bad?
There are 2 purple wires coming from the ignition spliced together connected to the alarm, a brown wire connected to the alarm and a black wire which comes from the alarm and connects to the ignition switch.

The engine is a 1983 Evinrude 115
Any help would be great.

Thanks

[wingtime]

I think a tan wire is for engine temp... so it could be a overheat alarm.  Of course it's not hot.  So maybe a bad sender or a wire is shorted to ground.

Here is a link to common wire color codes:  http://www.maxrules.com/fixomcwiringcodes.html

[seabob4]

Tan is definitely temp sender, like my buddy Bruce described.  Purple is ign +, and black of course is ground.  You have an older warning horn, the newer ones only have tan and purple.

You most likely have a direct short from black to purple.  The tan works on resistance to ground, once the resistance is low enough, the tan essentially becomes aground.  So time to do a little continuity testing...

[wingtime]

I'd go to the power head and find the tan wire on the temp sender and pull it off.  If the alarm stops its the sender... if not there is a short to ground somewhere and it's time to get out the tester.  I'm with Bob in that your overheat alarm is just like a "idiot" light.  At a certain temperature the temperature sender closes to ground and the alarm horn sounds.


Edit:  Here is a wire diagram:  http://www.maxrules.com/graphics/omc/wi ... V4_TNT.jpg