Hour meters are meant to record actual engine hours.
Having two that read identically the same is unnecessary and misleading, as it would indicate an OCD condition around always starting and stopping the engines together, and the generally false condition of never having had anything done to either engine. 1983 is 35 years of a variety of Sh*t happening to one or both engines, so identical readings just look false. 3000 hours in 35 yrs indicate much lower than average use in some or many of those 35 years. You just can't go that many years without SOMETHING happening to one or both.
Easy to learn to live with the different readings.
When I got my boat, one hour meter read around 3000 hours, the other was not functional, so I paid so little attention to the reading that I no longer recall what it was. I put in a pair of new Hobbs meters and by the time they read 1500 or so, I swapped out the engines. The newer engines came with their own hour meters, integral to the tachometers, so I have a new baseline, accurate on each at the lower helm. Up top, I had to hunt up a new pair of tachometers, each with integral hour meters. Those came from different sources, so have random readings. If I were truly OCD I would have connected them to 12v dc for the time it takes to make them the same as those on the lower helm. They are now in place 18 years, so I doubt that will ever occur.
Last week I had an insurance survey, after 7 yrs. The surveyor reported hours on the helm, tach, meters. Luckily I was there, or he would have reported on the Hobbs that are now disconnected. I doubt anyone reads that part of the survey report, but it is a source of history.
Those readings are now around 150 hours apart, as I had a major failure at the beginning of the season and ran on one engine from the end of June until mid Sept, when I took the boat in for repairs to that engine. Hour meters track that difference.
