Electrical Fire

[Iowabass3826]

Was practicing for a tournament friday when all the problems began. First off, my motor cranked very slow but did start, which seemed very odd because the cranking battery is fairly new and hadn't yet given any problems. I then checked my graph and saw that the motor was charging just fine (13.8v) so I went on with my day fishing. Towards the end of the day I glanced at the graph again under WOT and saw only 10v! all of the sudden the outboard died. I looked back to my horror and saw white smoke coming out of the cowl! I pulled it off and was able to put out some small flames with my fire extinguisher. After I got the boat home I pulled some slightly melted plastic covers and noticed the voltage regulator was completely fried/melted. and then just some melted wiring and plugs. Could it have just been the regulator itself causing the fire? Or should I look into a new stator also? Thanks

BTW the motor is a 96 johnson 115, model number j115gleoc

[PaulGifto]

Voltage reg Happened to my 92 last year Ya it is a horror show Should be around $1000 to fix depending on what damage was done putting out the flames
SUCKS BAD

[bkfish]

Happened to me also awile back.
New reg. rectifier, plastic timing cover.
Nowhere even close to a $1000.
Of course that depends on what all got torched.

[SEAHORSE]

What kind of fasteners do you have holding the battery cables to the posts, locknuts or wingnuts?

[PaulGifto]

Good point Seahorse

[Iowabass3826]

wing nuts, but with lock washers, and also tightened down with pliers. I'm sure I should be using lock nuts instead. After tearing the covers off and inspecting basically the only thing that is completely trashed is the reg/rect. other then that two of the covers are just sort of bubbled up from the heat and the wires that run across from the power pack to the timing wheel are burned up. That kind of brings me to my next question, I have 6 inches of good wire coming out of my power pack, so is it possible someone would have a good plug with wires that i could solder and heat shrink to my existing power pack wires? It would save me a bunch of money. Thanks