Bilge Pump Wiring

[KenKrawford]

My bilge pump has stopped working and there is no power reaching the breaker. I manually cycled the pump a week earlier and everything was fine. I double checked to be sure the breaker was on and the inline fuse tested good. I can't get a voltage reading on the line side of the fuse holder and the wire disappears into a large bundle that is impossible to trace. The wiring schematic shows "Bilge Pump Breaker Hot Side From Battery" but I don't have anything wired directly to my battery other than the charger leads.
I'm tempted to just run a new wire from the battery to the breaker and be done with it but am puzzled by this sudden failure and being unable to figure out where the source of power to the breaker is. Any ideas?

[wolfe10]

Ken,

Total speculation, as I have not had that issue.

I can think of only two places to get "at battery connection":

At the battery.
At the battery lug of the battery switch (either #1 or #2, not common which is power "out")

[jbd3]

Mine was broken and when I installed the new one, one of the crimp connectors was very loose and just slipped apart. I crimped the new one hard and added heat shrink tubing. It may be something as simple as that..

[KenKrawford]

jbd, you’ve raised an interesting point. I had a lightning strike several years ago and the in-line fuse for the bilge pump was damaged and I replaced it. I’ll go back and check the crimp on the new one I put in and see if that might be the problem.
Brett, I know there’s not a connection at the batteries because that was the first place I double checked. If that leaves only the switch, then I’ll just run a new wire to the battery. Much easier than wrestling with the switch.

[wolfe10]

Ken,

I understand just running a new hot, but would probably spend an hour or so tracing the old one-- would hate to have a "sometimes hot" wire loose back there!

[KenKrawford]

I'm finally able to update this project. There was no problem with the wire or any of the crimp connections starting from the bilge pump circuit breaker all the way to where the wire disappears into a bundle of several dozen others heading away from the electrical panel. I pulled the panel holding the distribution and windlass circuit breakers looking for the other end of the 14 ga red wire supplying the bilge pump circuit breaker. As mentioned previously, I was only able to tip the top edge of the panel out a few inches due to the limited slack and stiffness of all the heavy 2/0 size cables converging in the area. I only noticed two 14 ga red wires on the back of the panel. The one for the windlass foot switch was connected to the windlass circuit breaker. The one for the bilge pump was connected to a large stud on the back side of the OFF/2/BOTH/1 switch and shared with a piece of 2/0 ga cable (white arrow). The crimp ring connector looked fine so I cut and capped the wire at each end a ran a new one.
I'd love to know what/where the problem was but I'll settle for "pump is now working" and no power to the damaged wire.

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