RussH

I just noticed that my hour gauge quit working, it must not have survive the winter because I know it was working last season. I checked the wiring and everything appears to be fine electrically. I'm wondering if I should leave the old meter in and add a new one because I do have a blank space in my dash, basically I'm thinking if I ever sell the boat the buyer can see that I'm not trying to fudge the hours. The other option would be to replace the old meter with a new one but keep the old one.

Is one or the other a more proper way of doing it?

Bluefin Contender

TTaxi

if you remove the old one and add the new one, you can note the (XXX) orig hours in your maintenance log book but also use a label maker to put "ADD (XXX) HRS" in small font on the face of the new one.

fishmaster273

I hate adding hours to a meter, drives me nuts. I like to apply 12v to the hour meter and run it up to the correct amount.

autobaun70

It's a 30 year old boat. Who cares? Make a note of the old one, and put in the new one. If you want to be really anal about it, put a label in the engine compartment reflecting the hours at the time of the hour meter change.

Conundrum

jcbrown630

I like this method. Makes the most sense to me. It's something I'd do.

Rags

if you had 1200 hours on old meter you would have to run the new one for 50 days. Seems you may wind up burning out the new meter but hell just buy another one and start all over again.

jcbrown630

I would imagine there should be a meter out there with an option to add hours to it, where replacing an existing meter. Also more likely that age rather ran run time will do the most harm to the meter. Any chemical capacitors etc in the meter will break down and possibly burst.