www.iFourWinns.com

I tried this under 'electrical", but no one had an answer . . .

2000, 268 Vista

Here's the symptoms:
Batteries charged up, charger light is on green, dc power on. Some dc accessories work, others don't. Bilge, head light, blower motor, water pump all work fine. Cabin/cockpit lights, wiper, horn, GPS. Nothing. Also, when i flip certain dc helm switches on one accessory, the light on the adjacent switch illuminates

Here's what happened: two separate situations -
1. we arrived at our marina yesterday and the reverse polarity light was on. Checked the shore power plug and it was partially dislodged from the marina's outlet. Plugged back in and shore power light went back to green
2. Our head gasket is being replaced, so our engine is all taken apart, and the alternator is disconnected from engine and battery. Not sure how that might fit into the mystery. Is there a ground wire that's not attached that allow some dc circuits to work and not others?

I'm at a loss. Did we fry something by having the shore power outlet partially pulled out? Will my problems go away when the mechanic reconnects the alternator?

Thanks in advance for any help!

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2000 Vista 268

Suspect #2 being the problem. The 2 main DC grounding points for the 268 are on both sides of the engine on or just below the back of the cylinder heads. If they are only replacing one head gasket that means 50% of your DC grounds are disconnected. With back feeding and loads searching for grounds I would suspect all kinds of wacky things happening till the engine gets put back together, in fact it might a good idea to try not to use those circuits at all till all grounds are properly connected

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Our Boating Blog: http://ben-dana.blogspot.com/

2005 268 Vista "Sea Pickle II"
1979 AMF Alcort Puffer
Previous:
2003 FW190 Horizon
1973 Startcraft 18ft "Sea Pickle"

I agree with Ben. Need to have all grounds and systems connected properly for everything to work as it should.

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One of 4 Previous (Sold) Boats:
2000 Four Winns 268 Vista

Current Boat: 2004 Chaparral 235 ssi cuddy

Yep all the DC is grounded on either side of the engine bell housing (this is where the battery negative cables are connected), and the alternator is grounded by being bolted to the engine, via a bracket is bolted to the port side cyl head. If you ran a jumper wire from the alt case to one of the ground studs on the bell housing or any clean metal on the engine itself everything should work, unless other terminals were disconnected as well. Most of them have a large B+ wire that snakes down to the starter solenoid, and excite wire and a sense wire. But the alt has to be grounded (bolted) to the engine for it to all work.

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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