1986 184 No Electrical

I recently picked up an 86 184. I'm in the process of getting everything fixed up.

I've replaced 80% of the carpet and just need to do a few small trim pieces. Replaced the starter.

Electrical is next on the list but no accessories have power. Trim switches, pumps, lights, nothing runs. Most of the gauges don't work. I know there's no fuse box. Is there a breaker somewhere that runs to the dash? Is there a separate battery cable that goes to the dash and accessories? Hoping this is something simple, not looking forward to running wiring.

The old Johnson on the back runs fine but none of the factory trim switches seem to be hooked up.

Thanks,
Jimmy T.

My 1985 184-Champs in the shop, so I can't look at my starting battery area. Might see if there are any inline fuses connected to the starting battery (maybe bad fuse). Also my dash has fuses on the dash panel for things (nav lights, bilge pump, livewell pumps, fuel/tach, ACC), see photo.

How many wires are connected to your starting battery. I'd look at the smaller gauge wires, if any.

Mine has breakers in the dash, under each switch. Right now there is only one cable on each side of the starting battery.

If none of my dash switches worked, I'd get my multimeter and see if dash fuses (or circuit breakers) have 12v. If not, I'd get my flashlight and multimeter and check things out around the starting battery.

To All You New Guys

I found a couple wires hiding in the wire runs. The courtesy light turned on. didn’t hear pumps running but they could be fried. Hopefully i’ll be able to pull the tank tomorrow. i also plan to at a minimum run new wires for fish finders.

My 1985 184 has a plastic pipe in front of driver console for wires going to the bow. It's up kind of high and hard to spot, I ran wires for bow Ti2 thru it.

Ended up pulling the gas tank this weekend. Replaced the bilge pump with a new automatic one. The switch at the console seemed to be hooked up wrong somewhere so ran a new wire to it. Lots of splices on the trailer wiring so I assume the previous owner did some strange wiring on the boat too. Also plugged the line to the front livewell and rewired the other livewell pump. They seemed to be fairly new, but the wiring was corroded bad.

Does the plywood that was sitting in front of the gas tank need to be in there? Or can I leave it out for easier access to the bilge?

Is your carpeted plywood deal vertical or horizontal, in front of gas tank?

I removed carpet on my lift-out horizontal plywood deal, to use carpet for a center step for bench seat area.

Then connected 3/4 marine plywood to the lift-out horizontal plywood deal AND attached Minn Kota 3-bank charger (in 2010). I can lift-out charger - horizontal plywood deal at once, if need to remove gas tank.
Had two 31-series deep cycle batteries & battery boxes on port side from 2009 - 2023. Downsized to 27-series deep cycle, which was the size prior to 2009.

It was sitting flat in front of the tank where your charger is. I couldn't get it out until I pulled the gas tank. I though maybe it was to hold the tank in place, but I don't see it doing much.

I can maybe get to the pumps and plumbing if I leave it out.