1988 Dash Wire Disconnected

With my dash pod out of the boat I turned it over to inspect the harness and other connections. I replaced 2 breakers and checked all the wires and replaced the speedo bulbs. While doing the inspection I see that I have 2 disconected wires???

There is one black wire running from the ignition switch over to the area of the breakers that is disconected. I have no idea where it connects. The black wire is connected to the ignition terminal with 2 purple wires and 1 pink?

I also hace a very small resistor connected to the ignition breaker terminal that is not connected to anything on the other end?

tbeard wrote: With my dash pod out of the boat I replaced 2 breakers and checked all the wires and replaced the speedo bulbs. I have 2 disconected wires??? There is one black wire running from the ignition switch over to the area of the breakers that is disconected. I have no idea where it connects. Are you sure it is black? It should be red. Unless someone has done some wiring of their own. Black typically signifies ground, and the ignition switch is not dealing with ground at all, it is just switching positive voltage. Does your 88 have a separate push button ignition breaker and key? My 93 has that. If it does have that seperate breaker, there should be a wire that carries switched voltage from the breaker (usually red) to the battery (input) side of the key switch. The black wire is connected to the ignition terminal with 2 purple wires and 1 pink? This black wire is really a red positive I'm guessing. Then, you should have one purple for iginition to the motor, and the other purple tends to go to gauges and accessories that are for key switched voltage. They both go to the IGN (Or on part of your circuit). The Pink must be your starter wire, cause that's all that's left. I also have a very small resistor connected to the ignition breaker terminal that is not connected to anything on the other end? This is one of two things. It might have something to do with the little red lights that indicate a breaker is on. The other thing it could be is the Capacitor (I think it is called?) that deals with the Nav/Anchor lights. It's meant to be one way, so that when you switch on your navs, the anchor (stern) lights get power too. But, when you switch on your anchor lights individually, the front Nav light should Not get power. I personally like the idea of having them just be separate anyway.

Of course, pics of what you're looking at will confirm.

One more question, was it like this before and was working like this?

Everything works...all gages. But when I turn on the nav lights I get significant drop in voltage and some of the gage needles start to do weird movement. I will post pics tonight.

The black wire is the feed to the ignition breakers LED indicator, it doesn't come off the breaker like all the other ones do.

mark c wrote: The black wire is the feed to the ignition breakers LED indicator, it doesn't come off the breaker like all the other ones do.

That's a good point, I noticed the led for my ignition push button breaker only lights, when the key is also on.

I have a ground strip with 6 open connectors. Would it be helpful to run 6 ground wires from the open connectors to the ground side of each gage? I would have to get (6) 2 way spade connector and make up the pig tails. Or would it be a waste of time.

FYI I masked off the two panels, wet sanded the dash pod and sprayed with base coat /clear coat using low sheen clear. I am thrilled with how it turned out.....if you could have seen it before the restore it was ugly:)

tbeard wrote: The LED above my ignition breaker only has 1 black wire attached. All other LEDs have 2 black wires. I assume the ignition breaker LED is where the loose black wire disconected from. There is no way to reconnect the wire into that led. Should I wrap it up out of the way and forget it?

It depends on how crazy you want to get with it
http://www.nautiqueparts.com/panelindicatorlight.aspx
I'm guessing the wire broke off at the head of the LED, but the whole LED is replaceable for under $7