Honda 40 Tach Intermittent Failure

M

MOOSE

Member
While on a cruise this week, one of my 1999 Honda 40 tachs suddenly quit displaying. The next morning, starting up, it worked fine, failing again a short time later. This morning at the dock it works fine again. I don't think it's a loose connection, but I cleaned the wire splice contacts behind the dash anyway. If I knew what I was looking for, I suppose I could do the same at the engine end of things. I suppose the gauge could be going on the fritz also. Any other suggestions?
Thanks,
Al
 
MOOSE":2el5vztx said:
While on a cruise this week, one of my 1999 Honda 40 tachs suddenly quit displaying. The next morning, starting up, it worked fine, failing again a short time later. This morning at the dock it works fine again. I don't think it's a loose connection, but I cleaned the wire splice contacts behind the dash anyway. If I knew what I was looking for, I suppose I could do the same at the engine end of things. I suppose the gauge could be going on the fritz also. Any other suggestions?
Thanks,
Al
Click to expand...

Al, to put things crudely... Honda tachs really suck!

Both of mine (my old Arima, and the CDory) have done the same thing as your boat. Since you have checked connections, one more thing to consider... There is a slider switch on the back of the tach that selects the number of cylinders for your engine. Move it around a bit, then reset it back to the correct position. In both instances, that has "cured" the problems on my boats. I think there is some corrosion that builds up on the contacts of the switch. and moving things around breaks it down. Your mileage may vary, but it's a possibility that this is the issue.

There are probably a couple of Honda tach threads out there, so you might research them as well.
 
I have a 2004 Johnson Tach with small digital display that will display fuel flow, fuel used fuel remaining, and has the hour meter.

In 2008 while on a long trip using the boat at several lakes when I got to lake Powell one day I scrolled to the hour meter and it had reset to zero and was now showing a few hours.

I had a dealer read the codes from the motor and it contained the accurate hours but Johnson had no help for the reset hour meter.

Well it happened again this morning. I started up and left the dock. I started to get on plane and looked down at the Tach and it was not working. the only button I have is to scroll the digital display so I did that and the Tach started working but the hour meter has reset again.

Anyone else with a Johnson Tach and digital display? Checking for bad connections sounds like a good thing to try but I am not too pleased with this unit.

Steve
 
Back
Top