1989 bass tracker 1600 TF repair help

My boat has a power panel that feeds all devices(bilge,lights,etc). The panel has a master power switch on it and I have no power to the master switch. The tracker people have no wiring diagram for the boat and I need to find out why I have no power to the switch. If it’s a simple blown fuse I can’t find the fuse and if it’s a broken wire or connection I can’t find the break. I could run a new circuit from the battery but prefer to repair the problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I’m not familiar with your boat but I’ll try.
One place to start would be to run a conductivity test from your switch to the battery. If you have conductivity, it eliminates a broken positive wire and/or a blown fuse if there is one. If you don’t have conductivity, you’ll have to trace the wire to find the problem. If you’re unfamiliar with how to do that, maybe you have a buddy that can help. Make sure the ground that your using to test voltage at the switch is good also.
I’d think there’d be an inline fuse of some type near the battery, but maybe there isn’t. I know that I’d put one in if I was building a boat.
I’d also check the battery connections themselves(positive and negative) for wire breaks or heavy corrosion.

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I’ve already put an ohm meter on it and it’s an open circuit and I’ve tried tracing the wire but you don’t have access to all of it and most is wrapped tight. I can run a fused circuit from the battery but prefer to find the problem. Let’s say the power originates on the motor solenoid which is common and the break is somewhere in the harness if I run a new circuit the original break could cause me problems. I’m a retired electrical engineer so I’m familiar with wiring but frustrated due to the lack of a wiring diagram.

You know your stuff then. I wouldn’t know how to find the problem other than what one of my college physics professors used to call “using brute force and awkwardness”. I guess you could avoid uncovering some of the wire by testing conductivity a section at a time until you narrow it down if possible.

Good Luck!
Let us know what you find.

this might be a stupid question, when you hooked the battery wires up,did you hook up only the ones to the motor and miss the one that goes to the dash??
I have seen that more than once as the wire can get tucked out of the way when removing the battery for winter.

the tracker I had it was easy to remove the screws that hold the side panels on and fish new wires up to the dash,I zip tied the new wires where I could along the old loom.

no question is a stupid question but the only connections to the battery is the motor feed that’s why I expect the power source is somewhere on the motor

there should be a pair of eight or ten gauge wires that supply power and ground to the dash near the battery.
that old of a boat shouldnt be pulling power from the motor or its wires.

I have even seen where both of those wires get hooked to either side of the battery,most often to the ground side as both wires are black and the positive one has lost its red identifier leaving one to think its a ground wire.

thanks

I went through this with a pontoon boat last year.
It turned out to be the inline fuse holder by the battery not the actual fuse.
Just cut the old fuse holder out and soldered on a new one and solved the problem.