Dashboard problems-Help

[dstafl]

Hello again, Great day 1st on water day, engine purred like a kitten, as normal.  

But same issue as last season.  My gauges are out again.  @$#(*&*^^

Short background:   Last opening day everthing was fine then, first full day,maybe week or two later the dash went out. all gauges the four left(batt,gas,volts,temp),mph,rpm,accuski/digital, went out. But lower switches, lites, blower,bildge,nav, ect. were fine.

Dealer at first said the electronic unit (Sorry do not know actual name ) went out because I did I did not winterize it correctly(did not drain properly?) and was going to charge me $1800+ to fix it.

I f@#*ing frecked out. Luckly I got a hold of my original sales guy(at Honda now)and he said their crazy and stuck up for me and the marina that took over the service contract for epic backed off and warrentied the part as they should have.

This Season.

I ran my boat about 1/2 hour on a fack a lake flush and every thing was fine. Today I got it on water and first up throttle it spiked at 26mph on both big(analog?)gauge and 26mpg electronic/digital/accuski/?gauge, engine meters did work(gas,temp,batt,volts) But I was only at trolling speed. After 5minutes I cut engine reset the master electrical (at engine) and then all dash went out. Bilge,Nav,Blower,Lower Switches still worked. Then the F#$#ing Alarms kept going off, not imediately but on/off with out any reason.

Got so pi$$ed that I found both alarms (Why 2 ?) and disconnected both.

So Why again did this happen this season. I have an Appointment to service on Thursday, but this is the last season the boat is still warrentied. Sure they may replace it again but what about next year.

I will let everyone know as to what service says, any comments from group.

PS. I did land 4 Skyski Barrels(Driver sucked with out a accuski working)

PPP. Blindside Check is in mail(No Really)

 
 

[toyotafreak]

That's a real bummer, and we wish you luck. Remember that the gauges and accuski are driven by one computer and the switches are driven by another. I'm not familiar with the 'reset' switch you talked about. My understanding about resets is to cycle the battery switch off and then on. If you do ever get ahold of someone in the know, make sure you tell them what switch you hit (might be a clue for them).

Hang in there ( 61 % better is no lie !!! )

[matthewf]

sounds like they are barking up the wrong tree given two systems were out or playing up AND you still have the problem.

Take a good look at electrical layout and chase down any bad earth or power connections.. particulary if your boat has main bus ties (to each dash and ecu circuit?) or a distribution board etc.... if you dont know about this stuff take it to a auto or marine electrician, sounds like it would be worth 30 minutes of his time to check your elect system out before the other boys "plug and play" everything in sight and ultimately send you broke and mad

[cyclone]

Check electrical connections to your MDC box. THey corrode if your  boat is in the water and never taken care of. Clean the connections, look for obviuos wet/corroded connectors. Use fine sandpaper and some silicone on all cleaned fittings. That is all it is, I personally guarantee.

Pete

[lakerats247]

So what part did they end up replacing under warranty? My boat did the same thing this week. I took it to a mechanic this week for the check engine light, and at the time it had a fully functioning dash. He called after trying to hook up a ODB whatever because he couldn't get power to anything. The motor only turned once because of no 12v power...

I only have a few weeks till memorial day, I may have to take my dad's Taylor....  

[cyclone]

The MDC box is in the trunk on my boat, clean the connector! Toyota replaced a lot of boxes under warrantee that weren't actually bad. It has to be something related to that box or the power or ground connections to it. I have some issues with mine, fluctuating gauges, etc. If I get time to work on the box, I'll take pics so you will know where to look.

I could use some pics of the Vdrive MDC box and location for the site, I'm not certain where it is located. A d-drive with wet stuff in the trunk all the time tends to corrode the connections on the MDC box, causing wierd problems.

Glad to hear you landed barrels on a Sky Ski, I have to get one of those!

[brad]

I'm sure the problem is more complicated than my experience with my SX, but I thought I would throw this out there.  On our last day on the lake in October, I was running the heater and tried to turn on the shower to warm up the frozen wakeboarders.  When I turned on the shower, my switches went out.  The engine ran fine, but my switches didn't work including the ballast drain.  It turned out to be a blown in-line fuse next to the battery.  It should have had a 40 amp fuse but only had a 20 amp.

Best of luck hunting down the solution.

[toyotafreak]

Pete, I've got some v-drive MDC pics to send to you. The unit is mounted up high on the bulkhead forward of the driver's feet. It's a good location as far as I can tell.

Would really like to do the MDC power mod this year, and would for sure like to bring better wire forward from the battery.

[cyclone]

I have heard that there is an inline fuse on the main feed from the battery in the bilge. I haven't found mine, I never remember to look for it when I have things torn apart! If this fuse and socket is corroded, it could cause lots of bad things.

[lakerats247]

Now you've got me wondering. If I weren't so tired I'd go get the flashlight and see. If I weren't so tired.

[toyotafreak]

The v-drive does not have power running through the bilge, only a steering cable running aft under the fuel tank (S22) or fuel and ballast tanks (SX?).

The inline fuse for the v-drive is back near the battery and battery switch (under the stbd aft cushion).

[eagle1wi]

Get your dash some "clean" power.  Do the MDC mod and hopefully you won't have to replace all your guages and the MDC controller - like I did.  As per Scott at BorgWarner (they made the MDC for Toyota) when you get those annoying beeps from under the dash (your volt meter probably drops too if it is working) it means the dash is struggling for power.  I am guessing that you have intermittent cases that the guages "wander" and "reboot" themselves occasionally.  The MDC does not like to share the ground/power with everything else.  Since we have servo driven guages they will heat up and eventually fail.  My dealer originally "accused" me of jump starting the boat improperly because he explained that there is no way all the guages were bad.  They were - but they failed one by one - not all at once as he claimed.  My stubborn self hoped it was just a glitch and they would come back since some worked and some didn't.  Little did I know that they were committing suicide one by one.  I have attached the modification in PDF format that the BorgWarner guy sent me last summer.  Guys here on this board have it too so I know it has not been an isolated issue (Thx Derek)

[dstafl]

Just wanted to follow up with my gauges. They replaced my MDC controller. During the winter it cracked due to the water that was left in the speedo tubes that connect to the MDC controller. They warranted everything thank god.
Unfortunately I did not find this sight until after I winterized last season, And after reading many of the "how to" articles. I would have known. Thanks for the entire work cyclone to help all of us epic owners out.
 
Now I know for next year, but what gets me none of the service info I have read(I'm sure there are many I have not read), Say nothing of this as a part of winterization.
Even the former service techs knew nothing of this.

Any way all is perfect with the dash now. Even the depth gauge now works perfectly. I never was able to
get a continuous true reading as you move across the lake. Before it would blink and change readings only every 45-60sec.

[toyotafreak]

Great news!!!! Now get out on the water already ;-)

Do you or anybody else know what one of those MDCs goes for? Does anybody know if Accuski will provide the final toyota version without going through Toyota?

[dstafl]

Yea, does MDC units are around $1200. Thank god for warranties, I went through two of them!!

I would love to find out more on accuski too. I downloaded the operations manual, but honestly I haven't really gone through it that much. Most of it was detailed slalom and jumping mode info.

All the calibration stuff and set-up info is way too confusing!