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Ground wires

 
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changeofpace
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Joined: 12 Oct 2006
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Location: New Haven CT - Long Island Sound

PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 4:43 pm    Post subject: Ground wires Reply with quote

Mike, Leo or anyone else who can help.
I had posted on the old site about having the port engine spinning slow until I added another ground from the back of the starter housing to the negative side of the battery. This was in addition to the ground wire running from the head to the negative post on the battery. I am still wondering where the 3 original green ground wires are supposed to go. They come from the boats grounding system block located between both engines in the front of the bilge. They were all unhooked when I got the boat. I had hooked one of them to the connector block located just above it and the other 2 were hooked to each engine. When I had the problem, I unhooked the one from the port engine and found it was bad. I havent replaced it yet and was wondering if I need to. Everything seems to be working, yet it bothers me because I dont know for sure where they were supposed to go. I ran new grounds to each fuel tank so maybe they were originally supposed to go there? I know when I pulled the old tanks, there were ground lugs on the back and they were hooked to another ground lug located behind the water tank. Mike your boat is a different model, but from their posts, Leo and Shawn have an almost identical boat as the changeofpace. Next time anyone is at their boat and they happen to remember, look and see where the green wires go to
Thank
terry
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merwin10
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 7:22 pm    Post subject: Grounds Reply with quote

Terry,

Ground can mean many things on a boat - Usually the battery grounds go directly to the engines from each battery as close to the starter as possible so that you don't loose any voltage thru all the bolts - from there there is usually a ground the goes between the engines and generator if you have one to sort of make ground common to all engines - then there is a wire usually sort of greenish gold wire the makes up the systems ground that the other metals are tied to - Depending on the configuration there is also a common ground buss for all the other DC options as there is also a common postive buss that is fused - these busses are close to the batteries and then branch off to the dc panel - While speaking of gound the common ground also becomes the AC ground point -

Now when our boats where made they may not have done it this way - only because the standards had not been set in stone - but like everything else on the boat the electrical system might need to be updated - There is a good site to look at for the specs on modern marine wiring - it is the ABYC standards it is a large document and I will see if I can email it to you in .pdf format (Acrobat reader) - you will have to let me know if you get it as your mail service might not allow that large of a document to be sent -

Makes for a good winter project -

Hope this helps

Mike - Very Happy
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changeofpace
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Joined: 12 Oct 2006
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Location: New Haven CT - Long Island Sound

PostPosted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 9:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mike, I did have the engines grounded from the head to the negative post on the engine battery bank. The house bank negative was hooked to the connector block located in the front of the bilge. There were 3 green wires laying in the bilge when I pulled the engines. I thought about it and figured one went to each engine to ground the engines and one had to go to the connector block to finish the circuit for the dc systems. Not having seen where they go and my schematic doesnt show either, It bothers me a little since I have one unhooked and nothing seems wrong. I just want to know where they are supposed to go for my own piece of mind, kind of like when you put something back together and there are a couple of screws laying there, Know what I mean?
Terry
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leokow
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Location: Osborn Island, NJ.(Little Egg Harbor)

PostPosted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 9:26 pm    Post subject: Green Wires Reply with quote

Terry....I have looked at 3 boats like ours and none of them have the wires that you are talking about. Mine has about an 10 gauge white wire that connects all the metal in the boat to the copper grounding strap that runs thru out the bilge. I think someone before you put those wires in there. I don't know why this happens to me everytime I'm in one place what I need is in the other. When I get back to NJ. I'll look in the engine manual that I have for our boat , it's more a chrysler engine manual than anything else but it does have all the wiring colors and functions in it and I don't remember seeing a green grounding wire anywhere. It was a good while after our boats were built that the green household wire came into use, I believe. I think whoever did it was thinking along those lines. I did answer your post on the old site but I don't think you got to read it . I'll talk to you later ...Leo
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changeofpace
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 3:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

OK, slow day so I'll update my post. Following Mikes pdf file for the schematic for twin engine boats, I found the following wrong with my dc setup. 1) I had no common ground wire between both engines as required. 2) The engine main ground was not hooked to the dc main ground buss but to the submerged grounding tube 3) I had no disconnect switch or overcurrent protection on each main feed coming off the 2 battery banks.

What I found right was that the ac main ground was hooked to the dc main negative buss, the wires and new circuit breakers were of the right size and capacity.
The questionable green wires which come off of the submerged grounding tube are for hooking metal objects, grounding plates, radio grounds, etc.

I will now install the cutout switches in the main feed wires coming off each battery, and run the engine negative to the dc main negative buss, then run a common ground between the 2 engines.
Thanks goes to Mike again for the very useful and informative info on the marine electrical requirements. I learned a lot from this file and am wondering why I didnt have more problems, maybe because I only used the boat for about 1 month
Terry
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