Electrical failure

I need some quick advice from some of you more experienced owners.
My 78 Ski Nautique suddenly stopped yesterday when all of elecrical cut off. I was running at high cruising speed (35- 40) and the engine just shut off, along with all of my electrical devices. I had mistakenly left the blower on, but do not know if that is significant.
Anyway, I checked all connections, battery, and everything. Temp had been at a steady 160, oil pressure was fine. After sitting and trying the blower and starter about 3 or four times, It just all came back on and started right up and runs fine now, but I did not "fix" anything. I am afraid that it may happen again at a worse time and not "correct itself". It has a commander 351w with 40 hours since rebuild, if that is helpful info.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

    In order for everything to die, it isolates the problem to the main battery cables, or feeds (ground and hot) to the dash. Check battery connections, and main battery hot and ground connections, as well as the main feeds in the engine harness connector to the dash. Also check main feeds at the dash. It isnt a ign key issue as the blower went dead. Not sure if yours has a large circuit breaker at the engine, but if it does, tap it with a hammer (dont break it).
    If no visible signs, run the blower and lights with the engine off and wiggle all connections and see if you can make it die or get some arching. Be careful not make sparks around the battery if thats the problem area and wear gla$$es!!!!    Good luck!!

                                    Jeff...

I had that problem last summer I think. Turned out the connection where the Negative battery cable connects to the clamp was loose. I tightened the bolts and no more problems.

Thanks, all. I have still not been able to make it happen again. Perhaps, the bit of wiggling that I did fixed it. I guess that I can't complain about a problem NOT occuring.

That's right. That's why I posted this in the first place. With my luck, that is when it will happen again.

    79, he is loosing ALL power to the dash since his blower dies. If a coil were bad, the engine would quit, but everything else wouldnt quit.....Right.....

                                    Jeff...

Hahaha   
I don't doubt your experience one bit!

Tim D wrote: So you have wires from the coil going to the distributor and wires leaving the coil going somewhere else? Never seen that.

if you don't have four wires going to your coil then they are spliced somewhere else and it has been altered from the way it left the factory. Will that is if you have an electroinc dist, a point dist has three wires.

I would suggust that you review the wiring diagram in the reference section pcm manuals and you will see that the pos to the coil is directly connected to the ign switch and that the neg feeds the dash thru the tach and if your's does not have wirings going from the dist to the coil then they are splited somewhere else otherwise.

it will not fire the coil without a signal from the dist. Sounds like your wiring is pretty hacked together otherwise you would have wires directly from the dist to the coil. The wiring diagram is quite clear showing the connections as I discribe.

I don't know how yours is hacked together or by who but it has to have a wire connected from the neg side of the coil to the dist end of story otherwise it doesn't fire. Just because you don't see another wire at the coil doesn't mean that it's not spliced somewhere else making the connection.

79 you have a lot of good and knowledgable info to share with others in this group,but sometimes you come across in a condacinding mood ,this is not real good a far as a teacher/student dialog is concerned,some of our boats,early 60's are a little different than yours,but are wired and work about the same,share your experience not your attitude. All of us dont have a 10 boat like you, but with your help we can try.............boat dr

well you can either listen or do what you want and hope you fix the problem, I'm not here to teach, I'm here to tell you how it is and should be regarding topics that I know about.


There's two guys on here that always come up with off the wall bullsh*t when it comes to electrical issues and 90% of the time they run the guy in circles with cla$$room BS instead of fixing the problem.

Many years ago my coil died, it still cranked. I put an Accel coil on it. With the coil unhooked, it will crank. I never said it only has two wires. It has a hot wire, from the ignition, and a ground wire. Then there's a pos and neg leads going to the distributor. There's another wire on the coil going back to the tach, not the whole electrical system, which is fine because you don't care.

You're so gay, you must have d*cks in your mouth or on your mind all the time.

Here's a funny picture of your fat a$$.

"Get in my belly Correct Craft and battery knowledge"