Engine hour meter whacky

[sam]

Has anyone had their engine hour meter stop working? Ours is displaying strange letters and not indicating the hours. With no fuel gauge (long ago gave up on trying to use it / believe it/ fix it) I depend on engine hours for fuel consumption. I now keep a running hour log also.

Anyone had the hour meter quit or been able to fix it?

Thanks for any and all help or suggestions.

Sam

LONGHAWK

B43,hull #9

[Mike Brown]

Larry, that's two of us that wishes you had posted your fix sooner. I just paid over $300 for a new tach, and that was at wholesale cost. I sent a note to James Taylor telling him about your LCD screen fix. Hopefully it works for him as well.

Mike

[Brendan Smyth]

Hi Larry,

Brilliant find.  Do you recall the Part # for the LCD Screen and Ribbon at boatstuff.se? Or perhaps you can post the link to the part from their site.  My Swedish is not as good as it used to be :)

 

[Larry Witty]

I used google translate on the page, but in the end, here is the info from my invoice: "50104 LCD display Volvo Penta VDO" where the first number may be a part number. Since I bought the parts from here in the US and was unsure of compatibility, I emailed  [e-mail] and Rickard responded and was very helpful. He asked for me to send photos of my tach to ensure he got me the right part.  While I was a bit skeptical (i.e. fraud antenna was going up...)  of the entire process due to language, international shipping, paypal payment, etc, it worked out perfectly. Email is your best option as their service turned out to be great.

[Brendan Smyth]

Thanks Larry... I'm going to move forward with the purchase.

[Brendan Smyth]

All,

Let me open by again thanking Larry for his post.

The issue is well known, and there appears to be at least two fixes I've seen, as follows:

1.  Clean meter of silicon adhesive (I'm not convinced this is solving the root cause of the issue) because I've read many instances where this fix worked temporarily, or not at all.

2. Replace the LCD screen and ribbon cable (assembly).  This is the fix provided by Larry.  In fact, the boatstuff.se website lists the replacement part for a Volvo Penta tachometer, however, the tachometer is really a VDO tach with a Volvo faceplate.  The same tach is also used for the Yanmar (again the difference is just the Yanmar faceplate).  The LCD is clearly an issue and it appears that boatstuff.se is making a small business in serving this problem.  In fact, the dealer has even taken the time to create a YouTube video, which illustrates the entire replacement process.  

Here is the link to the video  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFkSwD5-mfw

I am going to order the part and complete the replacement.  I'll report back on any issues I encounter, and hopefully a positive outcome.  

btw... the replacement part is approximately $60 CAD + shipping.

Stay tuned. More news at 11.

[Mike Wilson]

Two years ago, our display would intermittently work.  I cleaned the contacts per one of the forums and have not had any issues.  I did email the gentleman in Europe and for around $70 (Jan 2018), I can have a new display delivered to the US.  I am ordering one to go to family that is putting together a care package to ship to us in the Bahamas.  At the time I cleaned the contacts, I found two new hour meters from a cruiser in Georgetown.  Since I had a "fix" it has worked since then.  Never installed the hour meter.  Go figure.

Mike

S/V MiJoy