Engine not getting power

[jmillski1]

Hello everyone, I have been fixing up a 2005 MacGregor 26 M bought at auction for the last eight months and prepared to finally get it on the water today. Took it to Marine shop four months ago who replaced both batteries and fully tested engine. I noticed the engine was lowered in storage. Switch the battery knob to green or what I figured to be both. Did not get any electricity to the motor. Could not even raise or lower it. No one took me through getting power to the engine, is there a switch or button that I am missing? Battery connection seems fine.The knob I am referring to is underneath the ladder going to cabin. Thank you

[Jimmyt]

Hello everyone, I have been fixing up a 2005 MacGregor 26 M bought at auction for the last eight months and prepared to finally get it on the water today. Took it to Marine shop four months ago who replaced both batteries and fully tested engine. I noticed the engine was lowered in storage. Switch the battery knob to green or what I figured to be both. Did not get any electricity to the motor. Could not even raise or lower it. No one took me through getting power to the engine, is there a switch or button that I am missing? Battery connection seems fine.The knob I am referring to is underneath the ladder going to cabin. Thank you

Are the batteries charged? Do your nav lights work, or any other devices?

You may have parasitic loads that drained the batteries.

Do you have a pic you can post of your battery switch?

While anything is possible (previous owners may have wired something strange in), there shouldn't be anything other than the battery switch to stop power to the motor.

[jmillski1]

Thank you. Yes everything else works, interior and nav lights, radio. Connections seem fine. Again they are brand new as of 4 mo ago. I’m going to head out and look again today. I guess I may see if local boat shop can make a house call as I can’t raise the engine up.

[Jimmyt]

Do you have a volt meter? Some basic checks at the battery, selector switch, and motor would narrow the search.

First, do you have the instructions for the battery selector? What brand/model selector switch do you have? If everything else is working, it may be something very simple. Without any pics, or wiring diagrams, it's going to be difficult for us to help you.

Did the mechanic rewire the boat, or just replace the batteries?

[WinSome]

Look for a blown fuse somewhere in the power line.

[krum]

Just a thought, Have you checked the oil level in your tilt mechanism? Had a similar problem with my 2001 tohatsu 50hp.
Had sufficient oil but didn't move. Finally had to turn the tilt device to manual via screw on the side of the tilt mech. and then cycled the motor full up and full down about 5 time to get rid of any air bubbles in the system. Worked fine after that.

Good Luck

[Be Free]

We're going to need more details to help you with this. It could be almost anything at this point. It would also help to know which engine we're talking about. Do you hear anything when you try to tilt the engine up?

With two batteries generally, you are going to have a off/1/both/2 battery combiner switch of some kind. It will have labels on it to let you know what it is supposed to do. The engine tilt mechanism may only work on one of them.

Most large outboards have two switches that can activate the tilt mechanism; one on the remote/tiller and the other on the frame of the engine. One or more of the switches may be bad.

The hydraulic tilt mechanism is one of the larger power draws on the boat. It's possible to have lights and radio work but not have enough power to run the pump. What's the current voltage on the batteries? Do the lights dim when you try to tilt the engine?

It could be batteries, wiring, battery switch, fuses in various locations, bad tilt switch, bad hydraulic motor, low hydraulic oil, frozen tilt mechanism, some sort of safety interlock... the list is almost endless.

Info on the battery switch and make/model of the engine would be very helpful.

[DaveC426913]

"Boat won't start up."
"Have you tried undocking it and docking it again?"