Over a year ago my speedometer on my boat dash quit working. It wasn’t a big deal since GPS speed is monitored & more accurate. At first when it quit I found crud plugging the pitot opening but after clearing that it made no difference. So I further let it go not to bother with it until yesterday. I went to the top of the motor where pitot tubing channels in and found it had pulled out real easy. Now I had to remove lower gearcase assy and spacer above that. I found where the tubing broke in to about an inch from pitot itself. Inspection of tubing revealed cracking of the full length of it being routed in channel of motor so I decided to replace a 12’ section of the tubing that routed back thru transom and splice into remainder 15’ to dash. As I finished this job up I next removed the shroud between gearcase/spacer & upper motor and found lower engine exhaust housing covered in black soot. This soot has been seeping to outside of painted shroud that covers exhaust housing. I always had to wipe down shroud from a lite film of soot in a couple of places. Today is cleaning exhaust housing and inside shroud.
*Curt, I put it all back together shortly after routing the tubing with exception of the upper shroud so I can clean lower exhaust casing which is done now, its ready for duty. It doesn’t take very long for me that’s providing everything is in working condition and I’m not delayed for parts. I’ve taken apart a few outboards replacing impellers, re-ring pistons, etc. * Yes, those RPM gages are glitchy, mine probably does the same thing yours does. My last boat also did. Boat manufacturers tend to contract out for good bulk deals for cheap operating instruments which we both have seen before. I have on the table to redo my dash replacing with descent quality gages. Looking to expand my dash by cutting out a larger opening and installing a larger panel as you can see in pic of my current dash. While a lot of guys enjoy the digital world which there is nothing wrong with that for more accurate readings, I like the old school of analog gages watching actual working instruments with needles. There are some cool looking gages still on the market.
