Hey guys, this is my first post on here, but I have enjoyed reading this forum endlessly throughout many boring days during this past year at school. Anyways, i have a question for yall. I recently purchased a 1985 Falcon Striper Pro. It has a johnson 185 on the back. We took it out a couple times, everything worked like a charm. Then we took it out a few days ago, hit a couple spots, then went to leave our final spot and all i got was a click from the engine. You know the kind of click that happens when the battery is dead. Anyways i put on a brand new battery, still nothing but a click. Then as i tried a 3rd battery, and attempted to start the boat, i hear an electric shock noise and the terminals on the battery are smoking. Id imagine this means theres a short somewhere, and both the starter and sylenoid are less than a year old. Any place to start would be of much help, thank yall!

I would test the starter first with jumper cables straight to a battery. + to the starter cable post and - to a good ground. If starter works the solenoid is bad, if not, its the starter.

Less than a year old or not, sounds like solinoid or starter. By you self a test light from the auto parts store. Connect clip of test light to battery. Have some one tern the key to crank poss. Put the prob end of the test light to the post on the srarter. If the light lights up, your starter is bad, if it does not light up your solinoid is bad. Cary

I had a bad rectifier that caused that same problem, in fact it burned the insulation off a wire on top of the fly wheel.
Be careful as this problem can cause a fire.

Go back and check all the connections as well in the starter circuit. It very well could be that when the components you mentioned were replaced that things didn't get tightened enough and something has viberated loose, outboards have a ton of viberation so it doesn't take long for them to shake something loose that isn't tightened well enough. I've seen this on a number of occasions over the years. If you find a loose connection go and a take it apart before you tighten it and clean it with a wire brush. More than likely it will have a carbon built up at the contact points and this will cause resistance and heat. DC circuits; especailly lower voltages, produce a lot more heat than AC circuits so it doesn't take a whole lot of resistance to get smoke....

thanks guys for the help, im working on it today, will be doing the tests that where suggested and will let yall know how it goes!

this, the arc and smoke you described sound like a loose battery connection.

What was the problem?

TTT