Did I cook my battery??

[rktktpaul]

Alright - I did a bonehead move.

Back story. Around 4th of July, I finally installed my Uniden QT206 depth finder. After disconnecting the battery, I removed the instrument panel to install and wire the gauge; I spliced into the power wiring provided for the Sea Ray optional depth finder gauge. I reinstalled the panel, and reconnected the battery. Depth finder worked fine.

The one thing I noticed when I turned off the key switch was that the gauges did not go to a "resting" position; i.e. the trim indicator zeroed out to the right, tachometer would sit at about 800 RPM position, temperature gauge would sit at about 140 degrees. The fuel and oil pressure gauges were the only ones that would go to their "resting" position to the left. I have no idea what or why this happened.

I had the boat out for a four day weekend and had no issues with it starting.

Fast forward to Labor Day weekend. I hadn't had the boat out since the Fourth. The family finally had time to go away for Labor Day, and we were going to take the boat with. Friday before we leave, I pull the boat out of the garage and clean her up for the trip.

I also wanted to make sure there were no starting/running problems, so I put the muffs on the outdrive and was going to start her up. I always lower the outdrive when I run the engine in the driveway; sure enough, when I hit the trim button I got nothing. Battery was completely drained.

Now this is where I really screwed up - I knew I shouldn't have been messing with starting the boat on only three hours of sleep. I pulled my car up to jump start the boat. I knew to put the red jumper lead on the positive terminal of the dead battery, go to positive and negative on the good battery, and finally the black jumper lead to ground on the block of the boat engine. The sequence is going through my head as I place the black lead to negative on the dead battery, red to positive and black to negative on the car, and red lead to engine ground on the boat.

I should have noticed that I screwed up when the huge shower of sparks came off the last connection I made, but I figured out once the insulator jacket started melting on the cables that I should disconect everything.

After everything cooled down, I hooked it all up the right way and got her jump started. Everything started up all right. A neighbor had a test meter, and the battery and alternator showed to be ok. I ran the boat for a while, shut her off, and restarted with no problems.

I decided to disconnect the battery, and threw a charger on it overnight. It charged for about 18 hours and I could never get it to fully charge. The charger meter never got lower than 5 amps.

Saturday we finally get in the water, boat starts no problem. Pull the kids around the lake, starting and stopping multiple times no problem. Take the boat out, and I disconnect the battery again so as not to drain it.

Sunday go back out. I almost don't get her to start at the ramp. The couple of turns on the motor that I was able to get was just enough to get the boat started. We ran the boat for awile, and had no issues. But then we decided to drop anchor off the beach, and swim around for a while. When we pulled anchor to head back in, it almost didn't want to start again.

So after my long narrative here, what did I screw up?? I'm pretty sure the battery is toast, but is there anything else I need to look at/ check out?? Alternator, fuses, circuit breakers??

 

[arock]

Your battery may be toast, but i would pull it out and have it checked at a parts store just to be sure.
Even though the alternator seemed to be charging, they say you can blow it's diodes by reversing polarity. Wouldn't hurt to have it checked too.
I would also check the wiring and connections, as well as the fuses. Something else could have gotten fried.

On a side note, I think all my gauges do the same as yours. I was told by a mechanic that this was normal.

 

[nauticaldog]

Have you checked the water level in the battery? Top it off as needed and trickle charge it again overnight, then borrow your neighbors load tester again and check out the Bat/charging system again.

 

[Four Suns]

When I was working in Atlanta I had my wife's little BMW down there as my car. I never drove the thing and only put 300 miles on it in 4 years. One day I went out to start it and, of course, the battery was dead. A guy that worked for me, an electrical engineer no less, brought his truck around and we hooked up the terminals under the hood to his jumper cables (the battery on the BMW is actually in the trunk). The thing charged for a few minutes and I started the car and he came out and pulled the jumper cables off his truck and then proceeded to put them in ONE hand with black meeting red... and held them there...

$1200 damage to the BMW... Ga Tech, I guess, doesn't teach about + and - in their EE courses.

 

[rktktpaul]

I guess its a good thing I didn't hang around with the EEs while I studied archiecture at Illinois Institute of Technology . . .

Thank you all for the suggestions. I do not believe the battery can be opened, so I think that's a goner. After I did my stupid move, I did check out all of the circuits and it seemed that all was in order. I'll look everything over one more time.