Two Hour Meters Suddenly Add 1000 Hours!

[BrentwoodBayliner]

I had a rather odd occurrence this week - twice. My twin diesel 1989 Bayliner 3288 has two mechanical hour-meters. Their appearance does not appear to quite match the other original factory guages. I know hour-meters can be troublesome so I'm not surprised they've probably been replaced by a PO in the past 35 years. No brand name on them.

They showed around 950 hours when I bought the boat a year ago and I have no reason to believe they are not accurately reflecting the real hours on these engines. I know the family I bought it from well, and they had it for over 10 years. I have logs going back many years and they confirm the very low hours of use. Visually the engines look untouched and operate flawlessly.

About a week ago one of the meters was set to turn over 1000 hours.. except when it did, it suddenly showed 2000 hours, and then continued to count up normally from there.

I've spent the past week trying to figure out how this could happen on a sealed mechanical meter, after a year of working normally.

Then today the second meter was set to turn over the 1000 mark, and the same thing happened! It went to 2000 and started counting up normally from there! WTF??

Has anyone had this happen to them?

 

[Iggy]

To me it sounds like a fault in the meters. I would look for a brand name and call them. Two meters doing the same thing. Just my 2 cents.............

 

[O C Diver]

Buy two new hour meters.

I had a similar problem where the hour meter died in the gauge console (tachometer) of my Cummins on my charter boat. Wasn't going to buy a new gauge console ($$$$), to record engine hours. Bought a new hour meter and finished the charter season. That winter, I removed the hour meter and took it home. Wired it to a battery with a maintenance charger and ran it for about 3 months to gain the 2,500 hours from the original meter.

In your case, it should only take about 40 days.

Ted

 

[rslifkin]

Buy two new hour meters.

I had a similar problem where the hour meter died in the gauge console (tachometer) of my Cummins on my charter boat. Wasn't going to buy a new gauge console ($$$$), to record engine hours. Bought a new hour meter and finished the charter season. That winter, I removed the hour meter and took it home. Wired it to a battery with a maintenance charger and ran it for about 3 months to gain the 2,500 hours from the original meter.

In your case, it should only take about 40 days.

Ted

Or as a simpler alternative, I simply placed labels above the new meters indicating the hours at replacement time that should be added to the meter reading to get the total.

 

[Comodave]

I replaced all the gauges on our current boat. I sent the new tachs with hour meters to Lauderdale Speedo to set the hour meters. Cost about $65 and was done in a couple of days.

 

[Jklotz]

With my cummings 6.7, after docking and shutting down the engines, I went back to do my logs and turned the ignition back to acc so I could log the hours. Long story short, I was tired after a long day of travel, ready for dinner and forgot to switch the key off. Next time out, I was 12 hours out of sync with my log book. Lesson learned.

 

[BruceK]

Maybe ask someone in the car trade to help.

 

[C lectric]

I had two hourmeters die early on in our purchase of our current boat. Both croaked at about 1,700 to 1,800 hr approx.
Both failures and the hours of each were noted in the log book.

I replaced with an electronic meter and it is still going at over 4,000 hr. No signs of hesitation. Total on the boat is now over 7,000 hr.

I kept those old meters just in case I sell the boat.

I suggest simply change the oldmeter(s) , note the failures and changes in the log, and keep the meter(s).