1979 85hp johnson water indicator and tach question

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Apr 14, 2009
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i recently replaced an 86 110hp evinrude with a 79 johnson. The first thing i noticed is that the 79 motor does not have a water indicator installed. Is that something that can be easily added to the motor?

I am also using the same control box and wiring harness as i did on the 110 evinrude. There is a grey wire in the harness for the tach pulse, but is that wire actually connected to anything on a 79 Johnson?
 

Sixmark

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Re: 1979 85hp johnson water indicator and tach question

By water indicator I will assume that you mean water temp gauge, mosy didn't have one but you can add them without much hassle, you can see if there is an unused threaded plug somewhere in a water jacket, if not then you can use a sending unit that uses what they call a Z bracket that you run one of the head bolts through to scure it in place.

Once you provide a year or a model number or even a HP rating for the 79 then I will tell you more.
 
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Re: 1979 85hp johnson water indicator and tach question

its a 1979 85hp johnson. The motor i took off had an elbow threaded into the outer exhaust cover (0323153) for the water indicator, taletell, pee stream, or whatever you want to call it... the stream of water showing the water pump was actually working. If i can, i would like to install that and the temp guage. Would i need to get a sending unit for each of the heads?

Thanks for the info so far.
 

Sixmark

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Re: 1979 85hp johnson water indicator and tach question

Well the gray wire would continue back to the bussbar at the motor and connect to the rectifier at terminal #7 of the bussbar.

As for the the water gauge, did the old motor have wires running back to a sender on your old motor? or did it have a tube, the reason I ask is that some units will use a sending unit to transmit the signal to the gauge, some other may actually use pressure which is then converted inside the gauge head.

If you truly wanted to know the flow on each head then you would need a switch to change between the heads, displaying them both on one gauge would only give the reading of the highest pressure reading.
 
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Re: 1979 85hp johnson water indicator and tach question

The old motor did not have a gauge at all. It just had a tube attached to the exhaust cover that shot a stream of water out of the lower motor cover when it was running.
 

Sixmark

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Re: 1979 85hp johnson water indicator and tach question

yeah that is just a telltale fitting and you can add that no problem, there is even a thread here on the forum for it, try looking under adding a telltale......it should walk you right through the process.
 

emdsapmgr

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Re: 1979 85hp johnson water indicator and tach question

A 79 Johnson should have the talltale hose barb plumbed into the exhaust cover just like your 86. The telltales came out in 1978 as standard. Maybe your engine is a 1977 or older? Post the model number from the transom ID plate. If your engine is older, probably the easiest way to plumb the telltale is to replace the outer exhaust cover. There must be hundreds of used flatback exhaust covers in marine salvage yards across the US. The grey wire for the tach is the same. Once you connect the red plug harness from the control box, to the 79 engine-that same grey wire become active for your tach. If you want to add a temp gauge on the dash, you will have to attach a new temp sender to one of the heads and wire it to the gauge on the dash. You will need to make a Z bracket to hold the sender tip in contact with the head as Sixmark stated.
 

Sixmark

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Re: 1979 85hp johnson water indicator and tach question

Just a little info for those looking, for those using Faria gauges, if you call them they will direct you to a supplier that still makes the brackets, I'm sure it can also be used for the teleflex sending units as well so long as the diameter of the sending unit is the same.

Otherwise they are a fairly simple thing to fabricate for those that have the materials and tools to do so.
 
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