Electrical HELP please.....

[Opfire]

Got the boat out of storage today, (2005 226TE) put in a new impeller fired right up and ran smoothly. then my son said something smells funny (electrical) i quickly shut everything down and noticed we had some smoke coming from the electrical panel under the steering wheel and behind the amp. I notice it was the ground wire to the amp, traced it to a three wire plug (labeled 12) the colors were black, yellow, red. continuing to trace the wire it went into a bundle where the black wire split off to a 4 wire bundle two black one purple and one turquoise which then went to the fuse panel. I need help to understand what went wrong. Just prior to this happening we got a low volt alarm on the digital display. If anyone can help please save my summer.
Thanks

[Opfire]

With a little more investigation, i traced the wire back to the engine. It is mounted on the "battery ground" post on the engine. It is 16G labeled #20 this is the only wire that burned.
it appears to go to both the amp and the ignition panel. Anyone have an idea of why this would short out? no fuses or circuits popped.

[xlair]

Amp wired incorrectly perhaps?


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[Opfire]

I believe the amp is correct, never had a problem before, the wire is a small 16G labeled #20 in the wiring harness, don't know what that goes to because i can't find the wiring diagram. it has melted from the amp to the fuse panel and all the way to the grounding post on the engine block were the rest of the negative grounding wires connect. Don't understand what would cause this wire to heat up, I tried to bypass the radio and start the motor but now the fuel pump and starter aren't powered up and i don't get a second light on the keypad?

[t.franscioni]

Hard to tell from picture but looks like that ground wire coming off the fuse box melted onto the red power wire going into your fuse box. Looks like I can see some copper in that red wire if so they could have worn, rubbing against each other until they finally shorted. That's the first thing I would look for is any place where you have a ground rubbing against a power wire.