How does the engine hour-meter work?

[bkwarford]

How does the engine hour-meter work? Is it connected to the gas line somehow? Or does it work off a vacuum or suction line? Or is it wired to the electrical system somehow? And are all hour meters connected by the same standard operation? <br /><br />I know I could loook through my Seloc repair manual to find the answer but I'm at work now and wanted to see if the forum could provide a quick response while i'm at work...<br /><br />Point being, I bought a used boat this summer and the hour meter only said 179 hours. The boat is a 1985 Chris Craft Scorpion 186 w/the I/O Mercruiser 305 engine and its a fiberglass hull. The boat has always been kept on a trailer to my knowledge so maybe it's just not been driven around that much over the years? Who knows?<br /><br />Overall the boat looks very original and is in fair condition for being 20 years old. So i'm assuming the hour meter was possibly unhooked at some point over the past 20 years. According to the person I bought the boat from, he stated that he purchased it from the original owner 3-4 years ago and decided to sell it recently when his job moved out of state to Florida (I live in Texas). All the guages are presently working fine except the trim level guage and i'm going to leave it alone after reading some of the other posted msg's about ppl dealing with the troubles with the trim guage being unreliable or quirky. <br /><br />Another question... This boat has 2 red and black colored stripes along the sides. Over the years these have slightly faded in areas and I wanted to ask for suggestions of how I might bring the shine and color back to these stripes. Would a common car wax help or hurt the finish to the fiberglass? Or should I use paint to re-color the stripes over fiberglass. <br /><br />thanks much in advance, <br />Tub'n and Fish'n

 

[Trent]

Re: How does the engine hour-meter work?

Hour meter is electrical. It can be wired several ways. Most are just wired to the ign. switch to provide power for it only when the switch is on. It also can be wired thru a oil pressure switch that will allow the hour meter to run only when the engine is running. It just depends on who wired it.

 

[swist]

Re: How does the engine hour-meter work?

And it can also be unwired several ways. I doubt there are any laws the equivalent of car odometer tampering. If the hours seem too low, they probably are.

 

[Scaaty]

Re: How does the engine hour-meter work?

It simply works like a clock! And clocks break and lose time, so ignore it. Haven't seen a honest hour meter in my life.

 

[ThomWV]

Re: How does the engine hour-meter work?

Its pretty easy to tell if its working though. Just turn the key on and go away for a few minutes. Most of them are calibrated down to 0.1 Hour (6 minutes) so if you just note what its reading now and go look at other stuff for a while and then come back you'll see if its now working. The problem with them usually isn't that people disconnect them to indicate low hours, I doubt that anyone would bother, its that most boats don't come with them and you never really know how old the boat was when the thing was installed. As an example, when I sold my old Outboard I gave the guy the Hour Meter with it and bought a new one which I installed along with the new engine. Of course the boat is 13 years old, but its only got 50 hours on the meter right now.<br /><br />Thom

 

[Philip Stone]

Re: How does the engine hour-meter work?

Then there's the guy (me) that turned on the ignition (not starter) while doing some wiring and forgot to turn it off. The next day while resuming my project I heard a click and looked to see my motor put on 30 hours in the driveway!!

 

[Larry Carnahan]

Re: How does the engine hour-meter work?

And then there's the guy (me) that put an hour meter on the boat when new (1993) and still has only 190 hours on it. I bought a place at the shore and spent more days (19) on the water than ever, but still added only 30 hours this season.

 

[sangerwaker]

Re: How does the engine hour-meter work?

Alpine, that's why it's important how you wire accesories in your boat if you have an hour meter. If you wire, let's say a radio for example, to the accesory position on the key switch, your hour meter runs in order to listen to tunes. I know I like to listen to some music when just chillin' (or if you were parked, fishing). On the other hand, you have to be careful not to leave the radio on if you don't have a battery switch. Been there, done that. My radio is now direct wired.

 

[Philip Stone]

Re: How does the engine hour-meter work?

Agreed Sangerwalker and I have been paying close attention to appliances that should be wired direct to the battery and those that can go through the accessory switch. In that instance I was troubleshooting some older wiring as in before my ownership of the boat.

 

[ThomWV]

Re: How does the engine hour-meter work?

Nothing should be wired directly to the battery.

 

[swist]

Re: How does the engine hour-meter work?

Except the bilge pump (through a proper fuse, of course).

 

[sangerwaker]

Re: How does the engine hour-meter work?

I respectfully disagree. The radio, bilge pump, and horn are the only things I have ran direct to the battery, and all are properly fused. I do not care to log hours on my meter in order to listen to the radio while parked or working on the boat in my driveway. I guess the other side of the coin would be to install a battery switch, which is probably what ThomWV meant, but I really don't see the need for one in my situation.