Question about changing an hour meter

[imported_ironmike]

Greetings,
I have a 1987 Cruiser Avante Vee that I restored afew years ago. As part of the restoration, I installed new gauges, one of which was a Faria tachometer with an hour meter. Recently, the tachometer started malfunctioning. The gauge was sticking, a problem that some have reported in the forums. I sent the gauge to Faria and they replaced the gauge with a new one, for a service charge of course. Based on the gauge being new, it does not reflect the hours that are on the motor. My question is would anyone suggest adding hours to the gauge to reflect the actual motor hours? If so, what's the best way to do this? The gauge seems to require the signal from the coil, it does not count hours when battery voltage is supplied. I read that the signal is a square wave which would require a square wave signal generator. Any insight you all can give me would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[tpenfield]

Re: Question about changing an hour meter

Square wave . . . I don't think so . . .

If you could just leave the ignition on, but not start the engine . . . BUT . . . that is not so good for the ignition system. See if you can apply 12 volts to the hour meter feed on the tach and if that causes the 'clock' to run. If so, you can just let it run up to the amount of hours, etc.

 

[Don S]

Re: Question about changing an hour meter

You have to hook up both a positive and negative wire to the hour meter for it to work. The gray wire coming from the coil is the signal for the tach for RPM

 

[JimS123]

Re: Question about changing an hour meter

Mine crapped out when I had 1250 hours on it. My new one started at 0. In my log book when i log in hours for service, etc., I log in 1250 + whatever the meter shows.

 

[Fl_Richard]

Re: Question about changing an hour meter

From the Faria website -

"To ensure accuracy, the Pilot 1 Speedometer and all Faria Tach-Hourmeter Combination Instruments utilize Engine Running Only hourmeters. This instrument does not read engine hours until a certain voltage has been achieved during engine use."

A little ambiguous to say the least. Sounds like it need 14 volts so it thinks the system is producing power and charging.

How many volts is the tach pulse?

 

[imported_ironmike]

Re: Question about changing an hour meter

I don't know how many volts the tach pulse is. Let clarify my experiment if it was not clear. I hooked a 12 volt battery to the BAT and GND terminals of the tachometer. This caused the LCD display to illuminate. Since the display measures tenths of an hour, I expected the time to change after 6 minutes but it didn't. This is why I was asking if it required some additional voltage like a tach pulse. I also read the blurb about engine running only hours. I suspect you may be on to something suggesting 14 volts. I am going to try this to see if that works.
Thanks.