2003 Evinrude Gauge Lights & Voltmeter not working

[jtecker]

I recently purchased a used 2003 Evinrude 225 that came the tach, voltmeter and a few other gauges. Engine runs great. The main harness cable from the engine has several plugs on the helm end: one for the tach, one for the ignition, and one for the shifter. The tach works fine but none of the lights on the gauges work and the voltmeter is not working. The guy I bought this from literally cut out the dash panel when he re-powered his boat so all of the gauges were still daisy-chained together. I simply installed them the same way there were installed in his dash panel thinking it was correct. Do these gauges get power for the light circuit from the main harness that plugs into the tach, or does a separate 12v connection need to be attached to the tach for that power? Regarding the Voltmeter there are currently only two wires going into it: one is the lighting circuit and I presume the other is the 12v source from the Tach. At least that is what I think it is. Shouldn't the voltmeter have three wires on it: 12v source, ground, and lighting? If yes, is the one from the tach the 12v source or the ground?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Chris1956]

Re: 2003 Evinrude Gauge Lights & Voltmeter not working

tach needs three wires. Purple is accessory power for all gauges. black is ground for all gauges. Tach sender should be grey wire.

 

[jtecker]

Re: 2003 Evinrude Gauge Lights & Voltmeter not working

I got the Voltmeter working this weekend by hooking up the purple and ground as suggested. Problem now is that the gauge itself looks like it needs to be calibrated. The gauge never went down below it's lowest reading of 8amps with the key off. I figured it was because it was not hooked up correctly and was somehow shorting. But now that it works, it rests a 11-12amps with the key off then jumps outside of the readings, over 18amps when running. When I rev the engine the meter does increase slightly with the increased charging so I do believe it's working correctly now. But how can I recalibrate the meter so that the needle is where it is supposed to be with the key off? There does not appear to be a way to open the gauge without breaking it.

The gauge lights still don't work. The lighting circuit on the tach has two posts on it. One is the blue leading to the light on Voltmeter. The voltmeter light also has two posts, one is the blue lead from the tach, the other is the ground that I hooked up to get the voltmeter to work. Should I be running a lead from my nav lights to the other post on the tach to get the gauge lights to work?

 

[Chris1956]

Re: 2003 Evinrude Gauge Lights & Voltmeter not working

purple wire should not have voltage when key is off. If it does, the ignition is wired incorrectly. Take a look at the maxrules website and choose a wiring diaghram to look at.

 

[jtecker]

Re: 2003 Evinrude Gauge Lights & Voltmeter not working

The purple wire does not have voltage when the key is off. That voltmeter reads somewhere around 11-12 amps with no wires attached whatsoever. Maybe the needle somehow got knocked out of whack during shipping. I just recently bought the engine used.

For lighting I did some more digging on some of the posts here at iboats and I now see that I need to run a lead to the gauge lighting circuit from my nav light switch. Hopefully that will get the lights to work.