built in Tach/Hour Meter?

[SAshton]

My hour meter stopped working. Maybe it's disconnected. What wire controls just the hour meter?
1998 250 Sundancer

 

[wish2fish]

There are a lot of people smarter than me on here but maybe this can get you started. There is a black wire witch is the ground or battery negative. Gray wire which carries the tachometer signal. Purple wire is the 12 volt + which goes back to the ignition switch. There may be more than one purple wire as there may be other guages that are fed down the line. I not 100% sure but I think the hour meter for a 1998 would just run off the purple and black wires. i.e. if you left the key on the hour meter would run. If your other guages are working its not likely the purple as the tach is usually first in line on the purple wire. Use a volt meter to see if you are getting 12 volts between Purple and Black wire when when the ignition switch is on. There should be one more wire that lights up the guage but I can't remember the color.

Is it mechanical or digital hour meter?

 

[SAshton]

mechanical meter

 

[fc3]

Those hour meters are notoriously unreliable. It's probably dead. I have them on Just Ducky. One is dead. I think the other one may be also, but I rarely check them. I use the Rinda EFI tester to get the right hour meter time from the engines for maintenance intervals.

Best regards,
Frank

 

[Dave S]

Frank.......I knew they stored engine hours in the ECMs of boats equipped with Smartcraft Systems but I guess I was unaware they had done that on the "pre-Smartcraft" ECMs as well. That's good to know just on the basis that one could verify engine hours on a used boat before purchasing it by using a scan tool. :thumbsup:

 

[fc3]

GM's MEFI-3 stores total run time. I believe that MEFI-2 also does. I am not sure if the MEFI-1 ECU stores engine hours.

Best regards,
Frank