" Steven,
If we are t
" Steven,
If we are talking about a fuel gauge that's for the boats tank and not something specific to the ouboards, yes, there is definitly something messy in that electrical system. I don't think it's a short; If it was a short, you'd be popping fuses (hopefully it has fuses) or at least burning wires / making things hot somewhere - check for that. There is allways the possibility that the battery is totally dead and can't support anything more than a fuel gauge - easy to check for that.
My guess is that either there is such bad connection, on power or ground, where all those accesories are getting power from (including fuel guage), that when you kick on something w/ real draw it, limits available power so much that the guage (and accesory) can't work correctly. If this is occuring, it could be a bad connection or totally incorrect wire sizing and will get hot at that point. It's also possible that something is wired wrong, either just the fuel gauge or something is wired through the fuel guage; example: the ground from the fuel gauge is going to the + of something else, making a series and doing something to the fuel gauge because of the draw.
As for the tach. When a tach doesn't work, it's often related to the outboard, but can also be the tach itself, or the way it's wired (possibly electrical system again). Does the tach zero out when you turn the key on? Are there two tachs, or just one for one engine, or one for two engines?If it does not zero - it's purely a wiring problem or broken tach; if it zero's, but does not go above zero, it's probably related to the outboard or wiring.
Boat electrical systems seem to be awfull 90% of the time, as things are usually added in haste. If you open a can of worms, and you are planning on having the boat for a while, I feel it's often worth it to just totally re-wire the boat w/ quality wire/junctions and organize it well. Tell us how it goes, Good Luck
Jon "
