I recently had a short in my ignition when the plastic nut that holds the ignition in place worked its way loose and my son started the boat without realizing it. When I jumped in after parking the truck and trailer and I tried to kill the motor at our first stop, I realized what had happened and elected to run it back to the ramp so I could make the repair on the trailer instead of risking not being able to start it 5 miles down the lake. I backed the trailer and told him once he got it on the trailer to use the kill switch to stop it. This should have killed the motor and everything going to the motor. When he did this, the starter continued to engage but the motor didn't try to turn over. When I realized this, I pulled the boat out of the water quickly to try to kill power to the starter since you couldn't turn the key off since the ignition was lose in the dash panel. This overheated everything and burned the wires from the battery to the slave solenoid and the cables from the solenoid to the starter....plus the starter!

I replaced the starter, ignition, and slave solenoid and had the cables from the battery to solenoid to starter replaced and the motor started. One catch was that when my positive cable running power to my graphs at the console and bow are connected I lose power to the motor and it won't make a sound. I disconnect the positive cable for graphs and the motor starts. My first thought was that this wire has a short or is bad. Well, I hooked the graphs up and they all work when that positive cable is connected to battery....just no power to motor. I am certainly not an expert on these type of issues but everyone I have talked to about this has come back with the same response.....no idea.

I am a boat captain for my son's HS fishing team and I am hoping this is a quick fix.

For what it is worth, it is a 2004 Triton TR-21X with a 225 Mercury Optimax.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and suggestions.

have you checked the battery for a dead cell or voltage after charging?

if you burned the cable from the battery you may have shorted a cell in the battery.

with graphs on, turn key and watch graph for voltage drop.