Melted wires

[BradD]

You are not going to believe this. I just purchased a 1992 205 with a perfect pass and a left speedo that didn't work. i replaced the pickup on the back only to water spill from under the dash.
I took off my dash to see if the speedo cable was disconnected only to find that the cable was melted! As were others. most not all the way through, but this may explain why many of my accesory buttons don't work.
What the heck would have caused this?
What should i do?
Is my boat going to go up in flames?

I'm going to bring the boat to the dealer next Thursday to have the transmission leak fixed. I'll have them take a look at the melted wires, in the mean time is there something i should do?

[MarkP]

Wow,

Are you talking about all the little wires behind the dash?? I don’t know what could have caused something like that. Maybe something hooked up wrong?? Way wrong??

[BradD]

yes, most of the wires have a sleeve around them. Even the sleeve has some evidence of excessive heat. A previous owner hooked up perfect pass, maybe they did it wrong the first time and fried the wires, and now i'm safe.

[John B]

Does it look like it might have been a droplight that burned the wires?? :confused:
If the insulation on the wires is burned.
Cut the damaged wires and rewire those spots?

[JimN]

If the wires were melted by heat from an external source and the insulation melted together, you need to find out if the conductors are in contact with each other. If the cause was a short circuit, you may see places where the insulation burned through and it's darkened and blistered. Either way, the melted areas need to be replaced. Chances are good that the damage is restricted to the wires in the dash area and no further if the last owner/mechanic wired the PP wrong.

If the harness has black plastic wire loom on it, this needs to come off for complete inspection and repair. The wire sections can be spliced, if done properly but if they're all in the dash area, they should be replaced completely. This is no place for wire nuts or twist/tape, crimp caps or non-sealing butt splices. Make sure any butt splices are the kind that either are "heat and seal" or have silicone grease inside. If you can't find the kind with silicone grease, you can get a tube and put some in each end yourself. Ideally, correctly soldering and covering the joint with heat shrink tubing(again, "heat and seal") is the preferred method for splicing wires. Also, any ring terminals should be the heat sealing type. This way, moisture won't get in and corrode the wires.

There are quite a few reasons for this damage and if it's extensive, it ALL needs to be repaired. If not, yes, the boat can go up in flames. Any repairs of this type need to be done with the battery disconnected.