Hannibal
Well-known member
Quick bit of history ............
Over the winter - I overlayed the top of my helm station with back starboard (to cover up wear/damage). In order to do this, I had to remove all the gauges. Hooking them back up became a huge PITA due in part to my lack of knowledge, poor drawings/picture taking, and a mess of wires left over behind the helm from a repower a previous owner did.
Needless, to say, I quickly discovered that I had apparently killed my gauges most likely due to shorting them out as a result of hooking them up while power was being supplied (dumb I know).
So after replacing the tach/system check and others, I got them all working (aside from the two I am still waiting on). Everything got hooked up and acted as it should.
In taking the boat out two weekend's ago - boat ran GREAT and the gauges worked as they should ............ until I hit some rough water. At that point, every thump to the boat would cause the gauges to turn off then back on (tach would go to zero then back to normal RPM's). This would be followed by the system check doing its normal startup "BEEEEEEEP". As you can imagine, it was quite annoying having this thing beep at you every 30 seconds.
Easy thought was "loose connection" so I went through and tightend everything up on the gauges (some posts definately needed it). I apparently didn't do a final tightening after test fitting/installing. As such, I thought problem solved. Wrong.
Took the boat out this weeked. Started off fine but as soon as we hit some chop that caused some thumping ......... "BEEEP".
It's SOMETHING electrical. The boat runs just fine .... no performance issues at all. However, the thumping of the boat has to be moving something. I am guessing something in the tangle-mess of wires is touching something else that is "cancelling" out something that it shouldn't.
Could one of the 100 wires that is cut and unattached behind my helm (from what I guess is the engine bundle from the previous motor) still have some juice?
I ran a new power lead directly off the battery to behind the helm that is free floating (not connected to anything). It's hot but positioned in a manner that it is not near anything (zip tied).
An area of confusion is a group of wires coming from the old bundle. It has the tach wire in it (3-wires). One is purple and I can't remember off hand the other two. Bottom line, it's the same set of wires that I used to power the gauges from my current engine but from the old engine. Something is going on there. For example, at one point, the purple wire (from the old bundle) was screwed into the ground terminal. However, if I do that now, I get no power to the gauges.
As such, I removed it and taped up the three exposed ends (seperately) and left in place. Not connected to anything. Not sure if this is causing the problem or not or is somehow contributing to it.
Another consideration that I haven't checked is that switch on the back of the tachometer. There are two or three options/settings you can chose depending on your application. When powered, my tach works fine but if I am on the wrong setting, could that create the issue?
Keep in mind, the tachometer gets it's power and siginal directly from a snap together harness. The other gauges are tied together and get their power from the ignition/purple wire from the engine bundle. As such, the tach and the other gauges aren't linked except by the blue/backlighting wire.
Last note - the gauges all pull their backlighting power from the switch that is shared by the GPS/FF. The FF/GPS has been acting a bit funny as well ............. freezing at a certain depth reading .......... but I chalked that up more to reattaching the transducer and reading the wake/bubbles at certain speeds/trim. It is only wired this way temporarly (again - need to do a permanent fit vs a test fit) but I am wondering if this could be creating some kind of havoc on the gauages.
Over the winter - I overlayed the top of my helm station with back starboard (to cover up wear/damage). In order to do this, I had to remove all the gauges. Hooking them back up became a huge PITA due in part to my lack of knowledge, poor drawings/picture taking, and a mess of wires left over behind the helm from a repower a previous owner did.
Needless, to say, I quickly discovered that I had apparently killed my gauges most likely due to shorting them out as a result of hooking them up while power was being supplied (dumb I know).
So after replacing the tach/system check and others, I got them all working (aside from the two I am still waiting on). Everything got hooked up and acted as it should.
In taking the boat out two weekend's ago - boat ran GREAT and the gauges worked as they should ............ until I hit some rough water. At that point, every thump to the boat would cause the gauges to turn off then back on (tach would go to zero then back to normal RPM's). This would be followed by the system check doing its normal startup "BEEEEEEEP". As you can imagine, it was quite annoying having this thing beep at you every 30 seconds.
Easy thought was "loose connection" so I went through and tightend everything up on the gauges (some posts definately needed it). I apparently didn't do a final tightening after test fitting/installing. As such, I thought problem solved. Wrong.
Took the boat out this weeked. Started off fine but as soon as we hit some chop that caused some thumping ......... "BEEEP".
It's SOMETHING electrical. The boat runs just fine .... no performance issues at all. However, the thumping of the boat has to be moving something. I am guessing something in the tangle-mess of wires is touching something else that is "cancelling" out something that it shouldn't.
Could one of the 100 wires that is cut and unattached behind my helm (from what I guess is the engine bundle from the previous motor) still have some juice?
I ran a new power lead directly off the battery to behind the helm that is free floating (not connected to anything). It's hot but positioned in a manner that it is not near anything (zip tied).
An area of confusion is a group of wires coming from the old bundle. It has the tach wire in it (3-wires). One is purple and I can't remember off hand the other two. Bottom line, it's the same set of wires that I used to power the gauges from my current engine but from the old engine. Something is going on there. For example, at one point, the purple wire (from the old bundle) was screwed into the ground terminal. However, if I do that now, I get no power to the gauges.
As such, I removed it and taped up the three exposed ends (seperately) and left in place. Not connected to anything. Not sure if this is causing the problem or not or is somehow contributing to it.
Another consideration that I haven't checked is that switch on the back of the tachometer. There are two or three options/settings you can chose depending on your application. When powered, my tach works fine but if I am on the wrong setting, could that create the issue?
Keep in mind, the tachometer gets it's power and siginal directly from a snap together harness. The other gauges are tied together and get their power from the ignition/purple wire from the engine bundle. As such, the tach and the other gauges aren't linked except by the blue/backlighting wire.
Last note - the gauges all pull their backlighting power from the switch that is shared by the GPS/FF. The FF/GPS has been acting a bit funny as well ............. freezing at a certain depth reading .......... but I chalked that up more to reattaching the transducer and reading the wake/bubbles at certain speeds/trim. It is only wired this way temporarly (again - need to do a permanent fit vs a test fit) but I am wondering if this could be creating some kind of havoc on the gauages.
