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I investigated Jbyd's suggestion that starter should be isolated from the rest of the motor and found that, in my case, it is not. It is bolted directly to the engine, metal on metal. There are also grounding straps going every which way around the motor. Oh well, it was worth looking into. I'm just going to live with it the way it is. Thanks everyone!
Steve
[QUOTE=birdstrike;365715]I investigated Jbyd's suggestion that starter should be isolated from the rest of the motor and found that, in my case, it is not. It is bolted directly to the engine, metal on metal. There are also grounding straps going every which way around the motor. Oh well, it was worth looking into. I'm just going to live with it the way it is. Thanks everyone!
Steve[/QUOTE]
Look at the starter closer if the connections are on the top ( or side) you will see that the post or bolts that the wires are connected to are NOT touching the housing of the starter. the end is either some sort of plastic or ceramic (NON_CONDUCTING) type of material. TRUST ME the current from your engine is not running thru your boat . If it was it would heat up like a stove element. NOW with that said didn't say that the motor wasn't grounded but if the hot wire was also connected to the frame of the motor you would light up like a roman candle....
Thanks for continuing to help out with this Jbyrd. I'm putting some pictures in the photo section so you can see what I'm working with here. I don't think that the current is intentionally flowing through the boat. I just think it's a by-product of the way the motor is wired/mounted or some kind of installation error. The electricity is flowing through the wires as intended but there is an open ground path back to the battery from the motor. If I connect the motor's ground wire to the battery and then check current from pos. terminal of the battery to the boat frame, I get 12 volts. Test lamp lights up too.
The battery ground goes to the top of the starter like you said. It looks all original, but I don't see anything insulating it from the engine. The hot wire terminates at a part that IS well insulated from the motor.
Still scrating my head on this...
What you are describing is very dangerous. There is NO reason for the motor to be "grounded" to the hull. If you are getting a 12 volt reading from the positive side of the battery to the hull, that is a dead short. If any positive wire in the boat should happen to get damaged so that the bare wire was exposed and it contacted the hull, that would complete the circuit and the battery would try to discharge itself as rapidly as possible until your fuse or circuit breaker kicked in. Assuming your gas tank is in the same compartment as the bare wire, the possibility of a spark is pretty high and this is the absolute worst case scenario. Don't think that you're safe because of the fuses or breakers, either. They can malfunction or be improperly wired, rendering them totally useless.
I'm not trying to be alarmist with this post, just trying to help a fellow angler understand and be safe on the water. Even if everything is in proper working order, this scenario could result in a higher amperage draw than is safe for a particular wire, resulting in melting insulation and smoke. And who knows what that could lead to?