1999 Super Sport Nautique- No lights on the dash

[ryancrawford1@yahoo.com]

Recently purchased a 1999 Super Sport Nautique with 600hrs on a GT40. The boat runs good, but has a intermittent problem. The boat fires and runs good for a while, after we surf and it sits for a little while it will crank and drive about 100 yards before it loses all power to the dash and the boat shuts off and stays off. The following day after getting pulled to the ramp, it will have power back to the dash and then the cycle repeats itself. I have replaced all of the circuit breakers (60, 15, 12.5). I have also traced the main power from the engine to the back of the dash where the ignition switch has 12.5 volts but the dash or the breaks with the red light has no lights. The key also has power but something it keeping the dash from being illuminated. Has anyone experienced this? or have any information on where to start?

[bturner]

On a boat this age (don't forget this is now a 25YO boat) almost anything is on the table. If it were mine I this is what I would do.....

I'm thinking Electrical - This is, based on the description and age of the boat, this is where I think the problem will be but who knows since I'm not there working on it in the failed state. That it happens when the boat is hot and resets when it cools is not unusual as things move around a bit when they get warm. My first tendency is to fire the parts cannon at it and while I try not to take a knee jerk reaction to these issues, part of my overall process of getting a used boat reliable demands it.

• Take it back to OEM - Since we're going after electrical I will typically start at the battery. With a boat this old its all but certain that someone has been in there before installing a "custom" stereo, adding "features" or performing general buggery. I like to start by removing anything that was added by a PO, and by that I mean anything down to a power outlet. Pull any aftermarket stereo connections and anything else you can find out, we'll deal with adding them back in later. The idea here is to eliminate any garbage from the equation. If you've run into significant buggery and have the option this would be a good time to test the boat again to see if you're resolved the issue. If you don't have that option continue to the next step.
• Nut and bolt - If you're not familiar with this term it means that you're going to look at scrutinize every wire, every connector, every buss bar from the battery to the dash. Once you get there you'll do the same with the dash itself paying close attention to grounds as these are typically the weak area in a boat since they have no steel body like a car to get a constant ground reference. Electronics don't like floating or poor grounds and your symptoms have me leaning this way.
• On principle replacements - There are some components I'll fire the parts cannon on just because of the age of a boat or based on a particular issue I'm having. With a new to me used boat that's 25 YO I'll make new power and cables from the battery to the engine. If you make new cable ditch any lead battery lugs for tin plated copper eyes. I like to go down one or two gauges on the wire when doing this on most boats as this is a typical place manufactures like to cut corners opting for the minimum spec. A lot of times, just like on cars, these cables will corrode internally and will add to a voltage drop which can cause the type of issues you're seeing. You mention you have a key with this boat, if that's true I would lean to replacing that as well. I've had 2 that have failed with weird symptoms. The last I would consider based on your stated symptoms would be the emergency switch with the lanyard. These are cheap and can be flaky. Doubt its going to be this part in this case but at a minimum would be prepared to jump it latter when diagnosing the problem.
• Battery - Your on the edge with the battery with a normal static voltage be about 12.4 volts. Since I'm assuming this isn't a new battery and it came with the boat, at a minimum I would take it to an Auto Parts store and have it load tested. I've seen what would appear to be good batteries perform poorly under load then look fine again when not under load. Batteries don't like heat so if the battery is located near the engine this could be contributing to the issue. Almost get a meter and check voltage when running. You should see at least 13.7 volts and under 15 volts. Outside that, you could have a regulator issue. I've seen over voltage conditions cook a battery and cause weird problems.

PD/PSI (Problem Determination/Problem Source Identification) - A true professional would start here but then again they would probably only fix what was wrong at the time. Since I boat on a Great Lake (Lake Erie) about 25% of the time I can't afford to mess around with anything that will be remotely unreliable. I started boating on the Detroit River and Lake Erie with junk boats (one that burned to the waterline) so I know a bit about electrical in boats and what it take to make the electrical safe and reliable. Based on my experience, if you want a safe and reliable boat, make sure the electrical has been implemented correctly and is in excellent condition hence my steps above before getting to PD/PSI. If after all the above nothing changes I would start testing for voltage drops between the various components. The wild card in this whole equation is going to be the PDM which I'm all but certain this boat has. There's couple guys on this forum that are way better with them than I am but this to me would be the last part I would fire the parts cannon at due to the cost. If fixing all the connections doesn't bring joy then these PDMs can be a source of some real crazy and intermittent issues. That your issue seems to be heat related a failing PDM could certainly be the source but one I would replace only if i could test it or exhausted all other options again because of cost.

I'll tag jpwhit to see if he'll see this and comment. He seems to know a lot more about the electronics than I do and may have a suggestion on how to trouble shoot a PDM.

[SilentSeven]

I believe your boat has this dash / breaker configuration? In 2000, I think this boat went to a different dash setup. This matters as the underlying electrical power distribution bits change.




Regarding your run problem, there is history of these boats having odd cutout issues. See if your problem fits any of the problems described in this thread.

https://www.planetnautique.com/vb5/f...intermittently

There's some interesting issues with possible fixes outlined. However from your description it's not clear if you have an engine heat soak related issue or some problem with the dash ignition circuit.

More broadly, the instrument clusters pictured above are known to problematic in that they don't have sufficient power/ground capacity to seamlessly support additional accessories like high powered head units or Perfect Passes. For my '97, I ended up adding in an entire secondary circuit to power my PP and stereo head unit. Dash power issues didn't cause my engine cutouts but did cause the PP to be flaky. I only mention this you say you have dash light problems which makes me wonder have high draw devices attached. If so, I might disconnect them (pull their fuse) and see if something changes.

[SilentSeven]

One more thing - here's a good description of how the dash ignition breaker behaves - https://www.planetnautique.com/vb5/f...que#post580665

[ryancrawford1@yahoo.com]

Thanks for the replies.

That is the dash I have in the boat. Before I lost all of the dash power, I pressed the blower switch to turn it on, and it tripped the whole system. The part that is throwing me off is that I have voltage from circuit breakers which feed under the floor to the back of the dash. The ignition switch has power on both sides and the key when turned on has power on the purple wires. Does anyone know if the relays on the motor could be bad? Whatever the problem was it has completely burnt out now and will not let the dash turn on even though it has power to the back of the dash. The stargazer perfect pass was acting funny right before it quit, the gauge would beep and then reset, beep and reset over and over when the boat was not turned on, with the boat running the perfect pass worked correctly. This boat has had no issues over the last 20 years (purchased from a family friend) until I purchased it. My thoughts was a bad relay but I'm just guessing because the boat ran great until it died from no power. Any thoughts on that?

[bturner]

I'm staying with bad electrical (power and ground). A weak battery that looks find without a load will also do this. You have plenty of suggestions to start working through some of this.

[ryancrawford1@yahoo.com]

I will see what I can find tonight, The boat has two batteries and I replaced them 3 weeks ago. I will be checking every connection and grounds. Does anyone know where the grounds are located on the boat? I know the main one is connected by the motor mount.

[SilentSeven]

The stargazer perfect pass was acting funny right before it quit, the gauge would beep and then reset, beep and reset over and over when the boat was not turned on, with the boat running the perfect pass worked correctly

This is a low voltage issue / bad ground issue.

I agree with bturner - start working forward from your battery cables. IIR, there are basically two grounds - there's an engine ground (which have noted) and then there is a dash ground which is part of the main dash harness plug.

Turning on the blower and popping other breakers suggests a short or ground problem.

[bturner]

The ground should be directly to the engine block, not the the motor mount. If you're popping breakers something has really changed from last year. I'd be looking for evidence of rodents routing around.

I'd also be very suspicious of the dual battery installation if it wasn't done at the factory. I've seen some really crappy "professional" installations done even by marinas which gets me back to one of my first statements.

As they say pictures are worth a thousand words.....

[ryancrawford1@yahoo.com]

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I checked all grounds and wires, and found a loose jumper wire that jumps between all of the push buttons. I crimped this wire, and the dash went back to working.

[SilentSeven]

Thanks for posting your fix! Glad to hear you're working again.

[bturner]

Excellent! Glad you were able to resolve this and update us.