TOPIC: 1958 Fat Fifty Electrical...

I'm having a bit of a hard time finding information and parts for the electrical aspects of my 50. figured i'd ask a few questions here and see if y'all could help.



i am going to need to replace all of the wiring for the motor, from the electric start junction box (i've already replaced the box-to-helm side of things) all the way through to the motor. i googled and looked around on ebay and a couple other online stores to no avail. is there somewhere i'm not looking?



i see from marineengine.com that the spark plug wires and their ends are listed as seperate parts... am i to understand that they're not molded together from the factory like plug wires for a car? are they repairable? two of 'em had come out and the PO opted to fix this by cramming them in and siliconing them in place. figuring to replace them all, and not knowing that they thread into the distributor instead of pulling straight out, let's just say that i figured they were REALLY stuck and applied pliers and force appropriately. =)



i couldn't find this switch in any of the diagrams i could find of the motor. it's bad and i need to replace. can anyone help with a part number?





one last thing: the kill switch for these motors is Normally Open while running, right? it closes to ground to kill the engine, is how it appears to me. when i looked around, the sites i saw said that some motors are NO and some are NC. i wanted to check before i spend a bunch of time turning it over with the switch in the wrong position.

thanks in advance
-chris

First. The spark plug wire is 7mm copper core wire. You can get it and the ends along with the boots at most auto part stores. NAPA is your best bet

As for wiring. Go to the AOMCI Ask A Member forum and post these questions. Frank or Garry will had any drawing that you need and will be happy to post them. It cost nothing and the info given there id=s priceless

www.aomci.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=askamember

BTW there are a lot of places cheaper to buy parts then Marine Engine . com

As for a wiring harness you can buy new here $$$
www.nymarine.ca/wiringharness.htm

The motor (inside of the motor) harness ...well I had one of my vendor make me one. They charged a fair price, and I am trying to get them to give me a price on making a big run of them...may be 6 months before they can, and I know that if the made the outer harness they can beat N Y marine's price

TT -

i noticed marineengine.com seemed to have pretty high prices. i was looking there because their exploded-view diagrams are easy to look through and i usually have pretty good luck finding what i'm looking for.

Here's another question about the fat fifty -

Can a generator be installed on the motor? it looks like there's a bracket that would allow for it, but mine doesn't have anything there (see pic).



I'm going to make my own harness for the motor since prety much every wire is toast, and i would like to know if i need to add a few extra wires or not.

Thanks

EDIT: just saw one with a generator, so that answers that. any thoughts as to how many (i assume 2) and what gauge wires to run?

EDIT EDIT: there are 2 unused wires in the harness. 12ga, i think. i suppose these would be for a generator, if it had come with it. answered my own question it would seem...

Get on the AOMCI AAM board and ask for a wiring diagram, and either Frank or Garry will post one for you. I have looked for one in my files, however I d not have one ...Yet

www.aomci.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=askamember

riceman wrote:

i couldn't find this switch in any of the diagrams i could find of the motor. it's bad and i need to replace. can anyone help with a part number?

thanks in advance
-chris

Looks very similar to the one in your photo and at $5.50 w/shipping may be worth a try? Have you removed the switch to see if there is a PN#?
Melanie

Oceans2 wrote:

Looks very similar to the one in your photo and at $5.50 w/shipping may be worth a try? Have you removed the switch to see if there is a PN#?
Melanie

That is what he has on there; however it has an arm like the one I posted in the main forum. He needs to go back to the mercury switch

This diagram was posted before:

All of your wiring (beside the starter and ground) has less then 10 amps going through it On most motors they used 14g wire for the Generator and safety; and 16 for the choke and kill (mag). The generator regulator must not be greater then 10 amps or you will burn out the generator. The started (and ground)you need to use a min 0f #2 and if the run is over 6 ft I would go to #1

Going larger never hurt

andy -

thanks for the diagram! just what i was looking for!

TT -

I've been replacing the wires with the same size as was on there from the factory... is that not advisable? for instance, i went with 4ga for the starter since the factory had 4ga.

Going back factory is OK. I just always go heavy on the ground and start cables because of all the motors that I have restored nearly all of them seems that the wire have gotten hot at the lugs