Potential engine fire!
Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 8:21 am
We start out the season at the local lake for Memorial day weekend. We get a slip for 3 nights, and plan on a great weekend. I launch her Friday afternoon, and motor around the lake. She runs flawlessly! Purrs even at WOT. It’s going to be a great weekend!
The next day (Saturday) we motor our way out of the slip and raise the sails! Slight breeze and we’re maintaining 4-5 knots. Yes, the motor is off. However we periodically smell a burning electrical smell! I check the battery box, combiner, fuse panel, radios, pedestal etc . . . . , Everything seems okay, however, the odor comes and goes! A few hours later, we raft up with a fellow Mac owner to have lunch. I’m sharing the story of my phantom electrical smell when I decide to give a sniff to the engine cowl. Bingo! It’s coming from the motor! I pull the cowl and notice that a box on the port side of the engine is smoking, hot, and the slight touch of one of the wires creates a spark! “Turn off the batteries” I strongly suggest to the admiral as she’s down below creating wonderful snacks for all of us! We cut our lunch short, and “finally” the engine starts to get us back to the slip quickly. I say quickly because the local Mercury dealer is an hour away, and I’d like to get her repaired ASAP.
We get to the dealer, and after some discussion and phots of the culprit part, I find out it’s the “voltage regulator”. $260, and they have to order one. It will take a week or 2 to arrive. The parts guy says that they have upgraded the part to a newer one that comes with a “kit”. It also contains a fuse! I tell him that if Mercury has upgraded the part and included a fuse, chances are that the part was a bad design and apparently flawed from the factory. He disagrees (of course) and tells me I need to look for the problem that caused the regulator to fail! I pay for it, and try and keep a smile on my face for the weekend!
After I got home, I did some searching on the web to find out that apparently this problem is quite popular. Apparently Mercury did a recall of voltage regulators on some earlier models of my motor for voltage regulators melting, shorting, and catching fire. I have a 2005 Merc 60 bigfoot, and so far, I haven’t found anything on a recall of any parts of my motor. It’s strange that I’m having the same problem as earlier years but they won’t own up to my year.
Let’s say that the regulator wasn’t defective, what should I look for, that would cause it to fry?
The next day (Saturday) we motor our way out of the slip and raise the sails! Slight breeze and we’re maintaining 4-5 knots. Yes, the motor is off. However we periodically smell a burning electrical smell! I check the battery box, combiner, fuse panel, radios, pedestal etc . . . . , Everything seems okay, however, the odor comes and goes! A few hours later, we raft up with a fellow Mac owner to have lunch. I’m sharing the story of my phantom electrical smell when I decide to give a sniff to the engine cowl. Bingo! It’s coming from the motor! I pull the cowl and notice that a box on the port side of the engine is smoking, hot, and the slight touch of one of the wires creates a spark! “Turn off the batteries” I strongly suggest to the admiral as she’s down below creating wonderful snacks for all of us! We cut our lunch short, and “finally” the engine starts to get us back to the slip quickly. I say quickly because the local Mercury dealer is an hour away, and I’d like to get her repaired ASAP.
We get to the dealer, and after some discussion and phots of the culprit part, I find out it’s the “voltage regulator”. $260, and they have to order one. It will take a week or 2 to arrive. The parts guy says that they have upgraded the part to a newer one that comes with a “kit”. It also contains a fuse! I tell him that if Mercury has upgraded the part and included a fuse, chances are that the part was a bad design and apparently flawed from the factory. He disagrees (of course) and tells me I need to look for the problem that caused the regulator to fail! I pay for it, and try and keep a smile on my face for the weekend!
After I got home, I did some searching on the web to find out that apparently this problem is quite popular. Apparently Mercury did a recall of voltage regulators on some earlier models of my motor for voltage regulators melting, shorting, and catching fire. I have a 2005 Merc 60 bigfoot, and so far, I haven’t found anything on a recall of any parts of my motor. It’s strange that I’m having the same problem as earlier years but they won’t own up to my year.
Let’s say that the regulator wasn’t defective, what should I look for, that would cause it to fry?
