Wiring experts, I need help; crossed wire(s) during gauge switch

[Donzi LG]

I hope some of you guys who are familiar with gauge wiring can point me in the right direction. I just swapped out my Gaffrig II tach and speedo for new Livorsi waterproof series tach and GPS speedo. I tried to be ultra careful but it looks like I screwed up connecting a wire or two to the new tach or speedo. I'm thinking probably the tach. I don't know sqaut about wiring so I need help from some of you guys who know a lot about this kind of stuff. The new tach and speedo each function correctly but the following is occurring:

1. all gauge lights are constantly on when boat running as is the little red light on the Nav/Anchor light switch which is in the center neutral position. (lights should be off)

2. when boat is shut off and the Nav/Anchor light switch is moved to Nav position, the engine alarm test beep sounds and gauge needles are activated as if I've turned the ignition switch to the first position before firing the engine. Is this Nav/Anc light switch wired to the tach? Any ideas what I screwed up?

3. finally the engine hour meter (located right next to tach) is not functioning. Is this wired to the tach and if so which terminal? This is the only reason I can think of why this stopped working. I may have it connected to the wrong terminal on the tach?

Everything was fine before the tach/speedo replacement and again, each of those are functioning correctly in terms of proper readings and operation. I hope I've only wired a couple of connections wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

John

[MOP]

One you thing have a purple/ignition feed wire going to the gauge light circuit, the terminals should be marked. Only plus terminals get purple, the feed for the tach is grey. The link below is to the basic wiring codes should help you out.

http://www.marinemechanic.com/site/page101.html

Phil

[MOP]

In reading your post again look to see if the purple that belongs on the hour meter is attached to the tach light terminal!

[Donzi LG]

Thanks Phil, I'll start looking there. That link is a great help as well.

John

[Donzi LG]

OK, I still need help!:( I managed to correct the hour meter issue but I've still got a wiring cross-up going on. Throwing the Nav/Anc switch also no longer activates the gauges and alarm. I've included pics that hopefully can show how I've got things now. I used wiring codes for reference but I'm confused on the blue wires. When working at the boat I had a different code sheet than the one MOP referred to above. That sheet simply listed Blue as instrument and general lighting. I noticed on the list Phil referenced it had Dark Blue as instrument lights. On the tach I have 3 different shade blue wires and on the GPS two. So here's what I've got going on now:


Gauge and navigation lights are always on when boat is running.
No gauge light function on GPS unit

1. Photo 1 shows the back of the GPS speedo; I definetly have a mistake here I believe. At the very least, I think that dark blue wire should be connected to the empty lighting terminal in the foreground of the pic, correct? Right now the GPS works fine except for no gauge light which I think this will fix. What could that light blue wire be for? Is it the ignition feed? Right now the ignition terminal is occupied by those 2 blue wires and the thin red one from the antenna. Turn the key and all the gauges activate and the GPS begins searching for a satellite.

2. Photo 2 is the back of the new tach. I'm totally confused on these blue wires and I'm pretty sure the heart of the nav/gauge lights on all the time issue lies here. You can see I have 3 slightly different shade of blue wires going to the lighting terminal. I think the dark blue is correct as the gauge light but I can't find any proper reference to the medium and light blue wires. The top wire, the lightest blue one seems to be connected to the Nav/Anch switch but when I moved it off the lighting terminal of the tach the GPS didn't work! I'm lost on this one. I checked the other tach terminals and the ignition only has hots going to it, ground terminal only has black ground wires and the sender terminal only has the gray tach feed wire. Any ideas on the proper wiring here?

Just to reiterate, I converted to new gauges and did one gauge at a time and only removed the wires from the backs of the gauges so I couldn't have crossed wires between gauges etc. There has to be a simple crossup on that tach I believe but I just can't figure it out. I hope some of you who have wired up dashes in the past can help. The new gauges look and function great I just can't find this error. The medium and light blue wires on the tach and speedo have me stumped because I can't find any code reference to them and the boat is a 2001.

Any ideas? Hopefully I've laid all this out clearly....

John

[Donzi LG]

I'm still struggling with this wiring issue. Today while checking the wiring I identified the hot wire from the nav/anchor switch with a test light. With ignition on, this wire (light blue) is always hot. It has been wired (incorrectly I think because the gauge lights are always on) to the light terminal on the tach since I swapped the gauges. While checking the wires this hot accidently touched the gound terminal on the tach while the ignition was on and I heard some zap when it touched. Now the ignition is dead. Boat won't start, no gauge activity at all. :frown: I checked all the breakers but nothing looks wrong. Any idea what the heck I did or what to check? Everything else works, radio, blower, engine hatch, etc. except the dead gauges and no ignition. Now I've got no functional boat until I fix this latest screwup:boggled:

Also, once I get the ignition fixed, can anyone tell me which terminal on the tach the hot wire from the nav/anchor switch belongs on?

John

[penbroke]

Without knowing exactly what you have it's hard to be sure...

Most of the installations I have seen use blue as the wire for the gauge lights. This should be hot when the nav lights are on or some boats have a seperate switch for the instrument lights. They should not be on any other time. The terminals for the gauge lights are usually easy to identify as they go directly to the bulbs and are usually visable on the back of the gauge.

There may be a main breaker or a fusable link in the wiring. Look around on the engine near the big wiring harness connector and around the batterys.

Maybe THIS (http://www.marinemechanic.com/site/page250.html) will help.


Good luck!
Frank

[MOP]

On a Merc or OMC check the red breaker back on the engine by where the harness hooks up.