Mainship Faria Gauge Hours Not Accurate

[Newtrawlerowner]

I am close to purchasing a 2003 Mainship 400. The seller (a broker that took it in on trade) says there are less than 700 hours on the engine but both gauges say something much lower. The fly-bridge tach reads 299, the pilot house tach says 6.2 The engine was surveyed and while the surveyor can't confirm the hours he did say the brokers claim is close. The overall condition of the engine is very clean for the age and the boat was on a lift out of the water most of its life.
He also said that there could have been a poor connection causing the tachs to not read properly.



Here is my question for you all.

These are Faria gauges and I'd like to reprogram them both to read 700. Anybody out there ever do anything like this?



I will keep the notes from the surveyor, take pictures of both gauges before and after because if I can do what I'm wanting to do I don't want to mislead anybody.



Any help is appreciated.

 

[O C Diver]

Not familiar with that specific gauge, but have done it with hour meters. Simple matter to connect power to the gauge, allowing it to run until the hours are correct. I wouldn't do it by leaving the ignition turned on.

Ted

 

[caltexflanc]

Call the guys down at Lauderdale Speedometer. They are extremely versant in boat gauges. Good folks to do business with. https://www.lspeedo.com/

Did the prior owners keep running logs? I'm always a bit suspicious if they don't have those and maintenance records.

 

[Newtrawlerowner]

Good question on the maintenance logs. I did ask, but no answer yet. I'll ask again.

 

[Newtrawlerowner]

Update on re-calibrating the hour meter. I found a post of someone that bought an inexpensive signal generator and it worked to run the tachometer that then started recording hours. They did this on a Faria tachometer. I'll call Ft Lauderdale Speedometer, but otherwise I might try the generator. If it works, I'll post back.

 

[ranger58sb]

If the tachs were rebuilt by Faria for some reason, they would not have reset the hour meters.

Have read three solutions: 1) Lauderdale Tach guys, 2) apply power, ground, and signal generator for X hours, 3) apply power and ground for X hours. Latter two are at odds with each other, so dunno which works... but just yesterday read about a guy starting #3 and seeming to think it was working.

Edit: Belay that #3 idea. That owner just told me there's a signal generator in his pic.... that I hadn't noticed.

-Chris

 

[Pete Meisinger]

When I rebuilt my engine I entered the hour log information into the ships log. I had three different meters with three different readings. At the time I installed the new engine I also installed a new hour meter which I refer to in all my log entries.

pete

 

[C lectric]

I don't have the built into the tach hour meters but rather have the independent Hobbs.

They ALL goof up at some point.

Lauderdale is a reportedly good place to get repairs done of most guages. Maybe they can help.

If the repairs don't work out then get yourself a pair of independent hour meters, install them out of the way as they are not primary guages and replace them as needed.

I am on my third meter, each change logged. THe current one now has about 3,000hr on it and still going strong. It is a Hobbs Quartz model.
The two older ones were not the Quartz model.

 

[Newtrawlerowner]

If the tachs were rebuilt by Faria for some reason, they would not have reset the hour meters.

Have read three solutions: 1) Lauderdale Tach guys, 2) apply power, ground, and signal generator for X hours, 3) apply power and ground for X hours. Latter two are at odds with each other, so dunno which works... but just yesterday read about a guy starting #3 and seeming to think it was working.

Edit: Belay that #3 idea. That owner just told me there's a signal generator in his pic.... that I hadn't noticed.

-Chris

I found a post on another website that said the person had to get the tach to move before any time would add. He referred to a square wave signal generator available on Amazon for $6. I will be calling Ft Lauderdale Speedometer but another reply to my post said they won't work on Faria gauges anymore and Faria wont reset hours. Again as said by another person replying. So if I do buy this boat and I can't get anyone to reset, I will try the signal generator. I will post how it worked IF I end up doing this.

 

[rgano]

The Faria meter you write of is probably digital for the hours, right? When I tossed the poor Faria tach of which the digital hour meter was a part in favor of a Floscan which also has a digital hour meter (well, it's actually all digital) I wanted the hours to match the removed Faria. I hoked up a doorbell ringer transformer to 115 VAC and took the secondary leads, the ones actually ringing the bell, to the Floscan. Tie was one to one, but in 600-some hours, I had the right engine hours. Replacing the two DC analog Hobbs meters on my trawler required anther approach - just hooked them up to a 12 Volt power source I have in the house. That pair took a half a year!

 

[catalinajack]

When I replaced my old, inaccurate Stewart Warners with programmable (pulse # only) VDO tachs, I simply labelled each tach with the number of accumulated hours from the old tachs. I kept the old tachs as proof to any subsequent owner. Yes, I would prefer to have the new ones show the actual total hours but spending 9 months bench-operating the new ones to reach 6,000 hours was far too OCD even for me and I am indeed OCD in this respect. My repair log reflects the updates.

By the way, if your boat uses a signal generator (mine now does) to drive your tachs, a programmable tach will be virtually spot-on. Mine are, both lower and upper as measured by a phototach. I wired the output from the signal generator to the wires that had driven the tachs from the alternators.

 

[rgano]

When I replaced my old, inaccurate Stewart Warners with programmable (pulse # only) VDO tachs, I simply labelled each tach with the number of accumulated hours from the old tachs. I kept the old tachs as proof to any subsequent owner. Yes, I would prefer to have the new ones show the actual total hours but spending 9 months bench-operating the new ones to reach 6,000 hours was far too OCD even for me and I am indeed OCD in this respect. My repair log reflects the updates.

By the way, if your boat uses a signal generator (mine now does) to drive your tachs, a programmable tach will be virtually spot-on. Mine are, both lower and upper as measured by a phototach. I wired the output from the signal generator to the wires that had driven the tachs from the alternators.

Here's how a REAL OCD handled it on a twin. Pull the non-functioning meter out and go ahead and place the sticker with known hours on a temporary new out of the box hour meter while running the a second new meter up to the current hours, Now replace the temporary meter with the one with correct up to date hours. Take the temp meter and run it up to the current hours of the original but still functioning meter and then replace the original. Now the meters are both "new" and the faces match because there was now way to find 30-plus year old matches for the original. Now that's OCD. Hey, I'm retired; what else I got to do?

 

[Newtrawlerowner]

Here's how a REAL OCD handled it on a twin. Pull the non-functioning meter out and go ahead and place the sticker with known hours on a temporary new out of the box hour meter while running the a second new meter up to the current hours, Now replace the temporary meter with the one with correct up to date hours. Take the temp meter and run it up to the current hours of the original but still functioning meter and then replace the original. Now the meters are both "new" and the faces match because there was now way to find 30-plus year old matches for the original. Now that's OCD. Hey, I'm retired; what else I got to do?

Now that takes OCD to a new level. Great idea,

 

[Newtrawlerowner]

When I replaced my old, inaccurate Stewart Warners with programmable (pulse # only) VDO tachs, I simply labelled each tach with the number of accumulated hours from the old tachs. I kept the old tachs as proof to any subsequent owner. Yes, I would prefer to have the new ones show the actual total hours but spending 9 months bench-operating the new ones to reach 6,000 hours was far too OCD even for me and I am indeed OCD in this respect. My repair log reflects the updates.

By the way, if your boat uses a signal generator (mine now does) to drive your tachs, a programmable tach will be virtually spot-on. Mine are, both lower and upper as measured by a phototach. I wired the output from the signal generator to the wires that had driven the tachs from the alternators.

As per other replies connecting power and ground is not enough to run the hour ,meter portion of the tach.I do plan on trying a signal generator. 250 days to reach 6000 hours. But I only need 600 hours. 25 days. Wew you had me worried I wouldn't outlive the reset.

 

[rgano]

Ain't this boating stuff PHUN!?