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I was doing a little maintenance for the first time, the boat is new. I tried to change the fuel filter and the manifold is one one side, coolant hose on another side and the engine the 3rd side and the fuel line is on the 4th side. I had to remove the fuel line get in there! Not hard to do, but why make it so hard!!

I bought the boat with a dual battery setup. I noticed that they were, two #4 wires to each battery's neg post. The past boats I owned used #1 wire and than jumped across to the 2nd battery. I had I 18" #4 jumper wire so I installed it across the 2 neg posts. Now when the engine starts, both neg battery wires are being used. You may want to look at your own setup?

Going to check the wires out next time I am able to. Thanks

Don't all the negative ground wires go to the studs on the engine block? What would the difference be in jumping the negative across the battery or if they each have their own.. they all go to the same place.

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Bryan Mutter

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To me there too small of a wire to begine with, remember, your starting your engine. Your right in your statement "Don't all the negative ground wires go to the studs on the engine block?" BUT, by jumping across, both wires both are being used rather than just one. No matter which battery is in use. So there is less of a volage drop, which is what you want!

Since I posted this, I have now changed it to one #2 and jumed across. So now I have less wire and it can carry more amps then the way it came from the factory.

OH, and I used tinned wire. I don't get how there can build a boat & not use tinned wire!! I keep finding connections that need to be replaced. One night the wife is yelling, "The water is not going down" as she is taking a shower. The connectoers were GREEN to the pump.

I recall reading a discussion about this somewhere, in that the question was, is it OK to have a jumper from 1 neg post to the other and then one cable goes to the engine ground, OR, should you have 2 separate ground cables, one from each battery, to the engine grounds. I think the answer was, its better to have 2 separate ones maybe in the unlikely event that the cable going to the engine ground develops too much resistance it could start heating up. Also, if you had to run it in BOTH, all the amps of both batteries, has to go through that one cable, probably heating it up. As a practical matter it probably is of little consequence, unless the 1 ground on the engine corrodes, or the cable (if it wasn't tinned) starts to corrode internally. I have 2 separate grounds on mine, since the batts are close to the engine, I used short runs of 2 gauge cable. The one long cable (positive from batt #2 to the switch) I used 1/0 because it is so long (I have one batt on each side of the engine).

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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