Electrial Issues on a 87 Sunsport

[FecalFajita]

So last fall I had some electrical issues where the battery would drain if hooked up, and wires would get hot and melt.

I ended up replacing the battery cables, starter solenoid, and got a breakerless ignition kit. ( http://www.skidim.com/prodinfo.asp?number=RP173072 )

That seemed to fixed the issue for months, until today. Now if I turn the key on (not starting the motor) The coil on the engine gets extremely hot and the volt meter on the dash starts to dip after a while. I've had my boat out once since I did the previous fix and it has been fine, and I've spent countless hours with the stereo on in the boat with no issues.

Is there a common part to check, and how should I go about checking this?

[oldsupra]

do you have your ballest resistor hooked up rite???? if you do replace your balast restor

[knoble]

Do you have one of those battery "savers" or monitors that is hooked into your positive battery cable? Those things are junk and have caused a lot of hassle to me and several other people! If you have it, disconnect it and see if you still have problrms. That thing would drain my battery extremely quickly!

[FecalFajita]

The ballast resistor was removed when I got the breakerless ignition. And no stupid battery monitors or anything like that...

;( I just finished all of my other projects today, after two months of working on it. And now this pops up just in time for my family reunion at the lake this whole weekend...Bummer.

[FecalFajita]

Any recommendations? Good place to start? Anything worth reading for electrical problems?

[oldsupra]

if you removed the balest restor then you MUST HAVE A INTERNALY RESISTED COIL RITE ????? you cant use your old coil without the balest resister

[FecalFajita]

That could definitely be the case, Skidim didn't tell me about that...Hmm.

[87SunSportMikeyD]

Maybe you can call someone up like SkiDIM

[knoble]

I agree! You need that ballast resistor! I switch to electronic ignition, a mallory and used the ballast resistor and it works fine!

[rickr]

Correct me if I am wrong, but, I thought a ballast resistor is used to reduce voltage across the points to make them last longer. The resistor is bypassed during crankiing to provide extra spark.

My boat came with Petronics with resistor bypassed. She runs great.

Supra is at the lake, I'll check the coil next time I'm there for internal or external.

I would call Skidim.