Conitnuous intermittent beeps at key turn

bcollins · May 26, 2017

Hey everyone, been a long time. Personal reasons have kept me out of my boat, and away from this forum, for going on two years. Hope everyone is doing well.

Anyway, I haven't used the boat since about two summers ago; however, I did pull it out of the garage last September to change the oil, water/fuel separator, etc and just make sure it was running okay. Everything was fine...at least on the hose. Fast forward to today and I decided I would run it on the hose and then drag it down to the lake tomorrow to test it out. This is where the problems start and let's just say I didn't get very far.

I turned the key to prime the fuel pump and basically the alarm just starts beeping rapidly. Not a continuous long beep, but intermittent beeps with very little time in between. This goes on until I turn the key off. Normally I turn the key, it beeps for like a second until the fuel pump comes on and then it stops. I also noticed the gauges where flickering along with the beeping. I assumed that it was a voltage issue but I have had the battery on a trickle charger the entire time it's been in the garage and it showed as both charging and being above 80% charged. The blower, bilge, etc all seemed to run strong so I don't think it's the battery.

Help! Normally I can go online and at least get a general idea of the cause but this has me stumped. Maybe an ignition issue or something? I have no idea. Any suggestions?

Boat: 2002 Centurion Cyclone

Engine: Merc 350 Mag MPI

RhuntIII · May 27, 2017

http://media.channelblade.com/EProWebsiteMedia/3506/Mercruiser warning horns.pdf

maybe page 6

Good Luck B

bcollins · May 27, 2017

Thanks RhuntIII, thats a pretty handy guide there.

So long story short it was a bad battery. It showed charged but had low voltage. I got it to prime the fuel pump, not sure thats the correct term, and everything else but would die when I tried to turn it over. I pulled the battery and checked to make sure it wasn't dry. I immediately smelled a strong sulfer smell. Looked it up and thats a sign of a bad battery....and pretty much anything else. Anyway, got a new battery and its good go. Disaster averted.