How do I connect battery to pontoon boat? There's four wires.?

Question

Mom had someone remove her battery from the pontoon boat and when they brought her a new battery they couldn't remember how the wires go on. Negative & positive is easy, it's the blue and yellow ones that are giving us fits. The yellow one sparks when touched to the positive post and the blue does nothing ever. Guages aren't working right, motor is running rough when we give it more fuel, constant buzzer for low oil when oil is full, motor shows up when it's down, gas shows empty when it's full. We've never had this problem before, 4 year old boat. Thanks for any help :)

Answer 1

Where do you have the blue wire hooked up? The yellow wire is a positive wire more than likely. The sparkinq when you touch the wire to the battery indicates that whatever this wire is powering is grounded. As far as the gauges sounds like they are not getting any power. Fuel gauge will usually read empty when not getting any juice as well as the tilt guage will read "up". Call your local boat mechanic he should be able to tell you exactly where they go and will save you some money if you do it yourself :) Good Luck!

Answer 2

This is why the owner of the boat should ALWAYS know the basics of how the boat operates and what goes where.  Either that or pay out more money to have someone do it for you.

You introduced reverse polarity on your boat or at least caused a short circuit.  Very bad thing.  I guess the majority to almost all of your electrical guages are shot and possible engine electrical system damage.

You are going to have to take this to a professional marine tech to get fixed.  This will not be cheap, expect maybe $400 to $900 or more in parts & labor.  The labor will probably be the most expensive because they have to do wiring troubleshooting and replacement, which is long and tedious.

Answer 3

You have made issue for yourself> As the yellow is now the new code for ground> But since it's not a new boat you should of traced it down before connecting> The spark means something is on or you connected the Ground to pos> So ele= damage has happened> You need to have some 1 with marine elec= trouble shoot your ele= disconnect the battery's till you get this resolved or a fire or more damage could incur>

Answer 4

Unless you have someone there who can check under the dash to see witch of those wires is positive & negative I suggest you have a mechanic look at it because if you hook it up the wrong way you will damage your electrical components on your engine.This will become very expensive.

Good luck.

Answer 5

So you decide to short circuit the wires to "test"? Smart. Well may be more than a wrong battery connection now. Take it to a technician.