1987 Ski Centurion Indmar question

Hi there folks...thanks for looking at my questions

I just purchased this boat two weeks and when I opened my dog house, I noticed that on the circuit breaker block, an orange wire was hanging off. As you will notice in the picture and off to the left. Not really sure what it is for but the boat seems to be running fine. That is question A

Question B and it might be related. My temperature gauge is not working. Might this be it?


Thank for looking,

Ian

the temp gauge should be the TAN wire. If you ground it with the ignition switch ON, the gauge should go to full scale hot.

The orange wire is usually an "accessory" feed. could also be the alternator output circuit if you have an amp meter in the panel.

Thanks for the reply! As far as the amp meter, is that the voltage meter? I have a 'battery' gauge. Is that what you are talking about?

Ian

makomark said:

the temp gauge should be the TAN wire. If you ground it with the ignition switch ON, the gauge should go to full scale hot.

The orange wire is usually an "accessory" feed. could also be the alternator output circuit if you have an amp meter in the panel.

Click to expand...

Depends upon what the 'battery gauge' measures. Amp meters are in the minority now and have been mostly replaced by voltmeters. These two meters provide indications of two different quantities - they are not interchangeable.

The easiest way to distinguish them is that the amp meter need to be in series with the load to show you how much current (amps) is being consumed. The amp meter would need to be between the alternator and the battery to show the current being produced by the alternator and I've seen several occasions were a pair of orange wires were used for this.

The best way would be to physically trace the lead to the end....much better than speculations, especially with a boat that may have seen a few owners.