www.iFourWinns.com

Most bizarre this week while enjoying unseasonable warmth here - I have a 1994 Horizon 190 with the a 5.0L V8 and Volvo SX drive - in the middle of the lake after leaving a beach when I went to lower the drive down, the instrument cluster gauges went haywire (showed max RPM, speed, volts, pressure, etc. then zero, then max again), the engine sputters (like a loss of spark) and then dies. I was running at about 1000 rpm at the time. Went to restart it and "click"sounds like a dead battery. I have a fully automatic trickle charger in the garage and the boat battery was hooked up to it on "maintenance" mode and checked out A-OK in the morning (I'm paranoid that way). Battery is new this May.

Connected the spare jump pack. Nothing but clicks. Connected the second spare battery pack (paranoid, as I go in the ocean frequently) and nothing.

5 minutes later, my buddy tried the ignition with no jump packs, engine starts right up and runs A-OK. I hit the drive trim to lower it again and same thing - instruments go nuts and the engine stalls out.

5 minutes after that, the engine starts fine on the regular battery and acts completely normal the rest of the day.

Any thoughts/experiences of that out there? Figure I'd ask before it goes in for winterization/and/or repair on the 17th. She has a new starter, alternator, plugs, distributer as of last summer and has run perfectly the entire season prior to this. I'm thinking some sort of short, but any clues where? Fuses looked fine.

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1994 Horizon 190
5.0L V8
SX/Cobra

Sounds like a short in the trim pump, or pump relay. Less likely, could be a corroded ground in the trim pump finding an "alternate" path to ground through the accessories. My sail boat did that with the lights.

First thing I would do is find your main ground (at the batt and engine block). Disassemble the connections, clean and reassemble. Do the same with the trim pump wiring and try it from there.

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Walt B
"Debt-Charged"
Black '07 H210SS
6.2L Bravo One turning a 21P HIFive
Wakeboard Tower with Perfect Pass Stargazer version
Missouri River; Kansas City, Mo.

Check the engine ground and all the connections in the trim system. The trim pump draws a lot of current and it can actually lower the system voltage enough to cause the problems you had. I
Mine did that (engine stumble when trimming) years ago before I changed all the battery cables.

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88 Four Winns 200 Horizon
4.3 OMC Cobra-4bbl
2002 Walker Bay 10/2012 Suzuki 2.5
2008 Walker Bay 8

1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4.0/Selectrac
2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 Hemi/Quadradrive II

I'm with the ground crew. Many strange things happen with bad grounds.

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2008 210SS 6.2L DTS Bravo 1 Now featuring MercMonitor w/SmartTow

You have a bad connection for sure. Maybe a ground as others have suggested. Might be on the hot side too. Look for corrosion and or loose connections on both sides.

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07 Azure AZ200,
Previous boat,
95 278 Vista,
And a lot of others.

Ontario, Canada

Shorts cause blown fuses or tripped breakers at best, and fires at worst. Did you experience either?
An open would cause what you describe. It's certainly a loose connection... either a ground as others have written, or a power lead.
Battery terminals, battery cables, and power busses would be suspect. Since you had the same result with a jumper pack (presumably hooked to the battery), I'd rule out a possible internal open in the battery.