Grounding thru hull

[James in Idaho]

I"ve always thought with a boat you should ground directly to the battery. My bud's 18 jet has everything grounded thru the hull. Seems to me that would make the boat "hot" all the time. Should we rewire the silly thing?

[fishingls]

Yes, I would rewire the boat. Rewiring the grounds to the battery will make it fish better.

[Best catch fishing]

You should have a main fuse box for hot wires with fuses and a box for the ground wires with out fuses and the battery is wired direct to them seperatly.

[fishkisser]

James take all your grounds and attach them together at a common buss isolated from the hull... Blue sea makes quite a few for different applications ...
http://bluesea.com/category/9/35
http://bluesea.com/category/9/35/productline/184

[lurking_out_loud]

Depends on if the boat in question is an inboard or outboard AND if the hull is metal or fiberglass. The correct answer is different for the different types of power and hull material involved.

Let us know what you have, and we can give you a better answer.

-lol

[James in Idaho]

LOL...it's an aluminum Weldcraft outboard.

Looks like our winter projects will include installing some busbars and regrounding everything. Pretty much what I thought. Thanks everyone.

[lurking_out_loud]

Simple then, all negative legs of the electrical system connect to the negative terminal of the battery. Keep that in mind as you go through every piece of equipment and light on the boat and you should be fine. Don't forget to check the bilge pump wiring as well.

Good luck, and take your time on this. Neatness counts on a rewire.

-lol

[fishkisser]

James :
Heres some threads to check out ...
Barney ...
http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=102698&highlight=hull+bonding
http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?p=1364333#post1364333

[lurking_out_loud]

Here we go again.

Do a search for all of the grounding and bonding threads before you follow the advise presented in the threads above. Nigel Calders article cited in one of the threads is based on steel hulled vessels with inboards where dissimilar metals will be found and actual corrosion protection would be required. Your boat is an aluminum hulled, outboard powered vessel that has a whole different set of rules for proper grounding and bonding.

Do your self a favor and keep it simple like we first discussed above.

-lol

[fastfish]

Anyone ever think of where your Negative Battery lead goes to "the engine block" and that the Motor is bolted to the Alum Hull so every negative lead you connect to the battery is essentially grounded to the hull.

if you check on your outboard, even though the Tower is mounted on rubber to eliminate vibration, there are bonding jumpers ensuring the engine block is grounded to the hull thru the bolts

Just my :twocents:, I have rewired many boats, and work on aircraft for a living, I have taken inside info from many of my Electrician buddys to get things right. Even tested to see if I have stray voltage thru the hull, always minimal, most of the time it is a overcharging situation from the regulator or the like.

again this as said above is true for Alum outboard boats and most inboard alum's

[lurking_out_loud]

Here are two great links to start from.

http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=196874&highlight=grounding
http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=196062&highlight=grounding

If you need more info, try these.

http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=162865
http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs...ingSystems.htm (http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/westadvisor/10001/-1/10001/MarineGroundingSystems.htm)
http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=179368
http://www.ifish.net/board/showthrea...hlight=bonding (http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=162865&highlight=bonding)
http://www.yachtsurvey.com/ElectricalSystems.htm
http://www.ifish.net/board/showthrea...188#Post791898 (http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?p=756188#Post791898)
http://www.kastenmarine.com/corrosion.htm
http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=78572

Remember, all of the advice you receive here is worth exactly what you paid for it. You just need to filter out the background noise to get to the real solution.

[fishkisser]

Golly Gee James ...:bigshock::bigshock::bigshock:
Look what You started ...:laugh::laugh::laugh:

Just go and do what you said last and do not try and make a science project out of it ...:twocents:
And yes your electric start motors on all metal boats create a bond of sorts thru the hull , don't sweat it ...
Barney ...:wave:

[lurking_out_loud]

Next. :wink: