Quest for accurate gauges

[Bitzco]

Weeellll dang, you is close to bein' a redneck. Ain't there a sweet pick em up truck in yer garage. No pick em up truck, no redneck. That's jest the way it is, unless of course you have one of them sweet bathtub planter boxes in ter front yard or your married to yer sister who is also yer mother and yer cousin.

[sailtl]

Well I have another problem to file in the "quest for accurate gauges". This one tops the rest of them. Sunday I was out and the hour meter was closing in on 300 hours. This is my second Tach/Hourmeter. Actual total hours is 678. Well anyways back to the matter at hand. So I am closing in on 300 hours. Next time I look at the hour meter I have a brand new boat with 0 hours on it. Took right off tracking hours again. After today's runs I am at 6 hours. What to do with these Medallion gauges? Does anybody rework all the gauges and MDC and big relay that all this goes through? 1999 Epic 21.
Ponder this problem for awhile and make suggestions.     

[sailtl]

Now the rest of the story about the gauges. When I start the 99 Epic 21 the speedos go to 20mph and stay there until I start moving. The faster I go the slower they read until they reach zero and there they stay until I turn off the boat and start the same thing over again. My volt meter reads 8 all the time it never moves and the oil pressure gauge is at 80 all the time and never moves. So the only gauges that work properly are fuel, temp and tach. Good thing I have a trusty hand held GPS and pull skiers using the tach and GPS.
Any thoughts out there?

[lesman01]

Just give your dash a healthy WHACK and that should fix it up. Make sure to have your head tilted just right though.

That happened to me once, although not the hour meter, I got up under there and pushed all the white harness connectors togehter and made sure everything was seated good. It eventually went away.

Sounds like there is a short somewhere, or wetness.

[sailtl]

I have done all the connectors many times. Take apart and put back together. Has not changed a thing.

[skregs]

I recently bought an epic and the guages are really my only gripe about the boat.  I never know when I turn the key what I will get guage wise.  I have also disconnected and reconnected everything with no real improvement.  The one thing I will say is both batteries have to be up to snuff or it will kill the guage package.

[toyotafreak]

Mine have been perfect except for the low voltage alarms and the depth finder going from awesome in '03 to yeah right.

Rick's mentioned bringing a dedicated ground up to the front, but if I had all the time in the world, or was having the problems that someof you are having...I'd recommend bringing both power and ground up from the battery switch to the dash. Bringing a beefy ground is only half of the issue, as you need to beef up the power-side too. I'd pick something pretty meaty because every volt counts with these things. 10 AWG or something along those lines.

Once the big red and black get up there, I'd tap off and go directly onto the MMDC power supply as described in the MMDC mod doc along with all the other recipients of unswitched +12 volts (well, battery-switched.)

[sailtl]

Toyotafreak
Thanks for the suggestions. I pulled 12 gage wire direct from battery to MDC on both + and -. No change. Frustration has set in.

[sailtl]

1999 Epic 21 with a MDC and not a MMDC. This devise is located in the wiring circuit just before it goes into the MDC. What is it and what does it do? I need to get my gauges working before the Epic can go in the water. Any help out there?

[sailtl]

More pictures of the item in question and what does it do.

[cyclone]

As for the red thing, no fricking idea. The black box is the "computer" or digital abacus or whatever the stoned out hippies at KM designed to perform as a gauge driver, display computer.

I did the new ground and power (8 gau) to the dash, it fixed all my problems except oil hi alarms which will be fixed when I swap the sending unit.

I think that swapping your computer might fix your problems, you might try asking around at dealers for ones that were swapped under warrantee but weren't necessarily bad. I could ask Tony, he may have one sitting around that he'd sell relatively cheap.

Pete

[sailtl]

That would be great if you could do that. I have also contacted Medallion and I am sending the MDC and all gauges to them for evaluation.

[Capt Rick]

The red thing is an alarm buzzer added to the boat. So when  you turn key on, if you don't hear anything it is because it is not connected, also it is for high water temp. The time to get the MDC, and gauges back will be a long time, Just to warn you!.

[sailtl]

Captian Rick thanks for the information. Is there a dealer that will quote pricing if I have the part numbers? I do hope that Medallion will turn these around sooner than later. I hope they have made improvements since 1999. Does TMS have the gauges and MDC in stock? I am trying to keep the Epic 21 as original as possible?

[toyotafreak]

Pete, did you take pics? Could you draw something up to show exactly where you went from and to? I'm assuming there's a main terminal block up front that everything's tied off to (MDC and MMDC). Is that what you went to? Did you also go directly into the MMDC too? Wazzzzup.

BTW, I finally got around to getting my domain name locked up - I see you didn't procrastinate like I did.