Motor Troubles

Wednesday I decided to skip out of work early and hit the water for some late afternoon crappie. About 5 minutes after I started my motor it died on me. I double checked my gas lines to make sure they were going the right way (I've done that recently) and everything looked good. I made sure it was in neutral and tried hitting the electric start and nothing, not even a click. So I took off the cowling, broke out the cable and tried to pull-start it and again...nothing. I noticed that the "reset switch" (see pic) was popped out and decided to push it. That was apparently a dumb move. As soon as I did that I heard a pop and saw a small flame shoot from a piece in the wiring. Scared the crap out of me!!!

Does anybody know what this part is? I've downloaded multiple shop manuals that were supposed to be for my motor but really arent. It's an older chrysler 10hp "Sailor". Below are some pics for reference with the piece that caught fire outlined. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks guys.

I am certainly no boat/motor mechanic. I would re-post your query here

https://www.aomci.org/

those guys will know what it is.

Also, I noticed, when I zoomed way in, that the broken part has some numbers on it. If you type those numbers, plus "outboard motor" in quotes, just as I typed it here...into Google...you may get a hit on a replacement part. Can't hurt, that is for sure. regards, Rich

Thanks richg99. It looks like it's teh rectifier. I've never had one go out before so this is new territory to me. Does anybody know what would cause a rectifier to spark & flame like that? I do recall that it came from the red (power) wire that goes into the rectifier.

From my 50 year old electronics correspondence course memory....A rectifier is two conductive plates separated by a surface that only passes current in one direction. i.e. it turns a/c into d/c.

Sounds like you had a short down-stream..and it blew a hole in your rectifier. I'd look for a short down stream (away from the power source) past the rectifier....

but...I am not any kind of an engine mechanic at all. Somebody who knew his stuff could probably analyze it in a minute.

Rich

Thanks Rich. After digging into the wiring and thinking about things a bit I realized that when I hooked the battery up before I launched I touched the cables to the wrong side which is probably where the short came from. I saw online that a lot of guys are using a standard Radio Shack rectifier as a replacement so I'm going to try that tonight. HUGE difference in price and it seems like a nearly direct swap. I'll post pics or start a thread if a) it works and b) you guys think it would help out others.

Neat....we await more information. Hope you can do it, especially for little money. Rich

Well guys, I tried the Radio Shack rectifier solution and it worked great! Installation on my mototr was pretty straight forward and I'll post pics & information in a seperate thread as to avoid confusion.

Outstanding! Looking forward to your complete post. What will be the title? Rich

Hey Rich, I just posted it under "Radio Shack Rectifier"