Ski Boat Forum
Repairs and Maintenance => Boat Maintenance - American Skier => Topic started by: lcgordon on September 28, 2015, 09:07:41 AM
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So guys I have a question. I have a 1994 TBX and my tach is not working. I looked behind it and the wires look to be tight. I dont really have much boat experience since this is my first one. Is there anything else that I can check to figure out why its not working?
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Tach's are one of the first gages to fail but you should always verify that the tach is bad before ordering a new one. The tach will have a ground wire-black, a blue wire for the backlighting, and a gray wire from the Ign. coil. and possibly a purple if it has a built in hourmeter. If the backlighting comes on with the nav. light switch your ground is good. Now you need to verify the gray (think of it as a sender wire) is good, it has a long way to go & several connectors. I disconnect one end and run a temp long jumper wire from the coil to the tach, if still nothing (with the eng. running) replace the tach.
There are several out there call me or send an email for a replacement quote....RonT
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Thanks for the information. I will be getting to this problem during the winter. The navigation lights do not work and the speedos do not either. The blower switch works though. I will check when I get home but I probably will not get to trying to actually test it for a while. Thanks again for the info.
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Well took the boat out today on its maiden voyage and it ran great and the tach actually does work. One question tho it was taking on a decent amount of water. I know where the shaft comes through is supposed to drip some to lube it but it was more water than just that and I looked at that and there was not water coming in from there. Does anybody else know of good places to check?
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Check the deck to hull joint. The caulking that was (or is) in there may not be in there anymore or may have become unattached. Especially near the rear of the boat. Spray from underway running and especially from hard turns will come in through the joint.
Another place I found leakage was around my raw water intake grate.
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Ok if the joint is the case how would I go about fixing that?
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Sorry, guess I should have went that far. The old caulk would need to be removed if its still up in there. You would then need to re caulk the area. Ron told me to use a large screwdriver or other device to actually pry the gap open just a bit as I added new caulking.
Im sure he will chime in with any other tips once he sees these posts.
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Thanks for that. One question do you do it from the out side of the boat taking the rub rail off or the inside? the inside may be pretty hard to get to.
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Look under the Technical help section, then hull deck leaks, I just added additional info pertaining to TBX models.
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Thanks I will do that.
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I have looked at my boat but not taken it apart. I do have all winter so im not in a huge rush. It does look like a bad design with the rub rail going under the swimdeck and under the water line. My main question is should I take the time and re caulk the whole boat or just the back corners like explained in the Hull Leak thread?
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if you have the time I would do the whole boat, just don't remove the hull /deck screws around the rest of the boat, just tighten them, repair if stripped.
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I will have plenty of time so I will do so. When going through your directions the third step is to remove hull to deck screws. If I was not to do that how would I pry it open to remove the old caulking and re-caulk. Sorry im sure once I start taking things apart I will get a better understanding of what I should be doing i just want to get as much information as I can now so that I can just do the project straight through.
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Imagine a shoe box with the lid flange screwed tightly to the box every 1/2 " - you couldn't pry it apart without damaging the box or the lid with the screws still in place........... your deck fits over your hull like a lid and shoe box and screwed (or through bolted) every 4-6" back the screws out clean the old sealant out, spread it, reseal it, re screw it
good luck
Dan T
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ok thanks thats what I was confused about. So just do the same process as listed but only do a 4-6" section and dont take all the screws out on the whole boat at once. thanks
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Excellent explanation from Dan. I personally wouldn't hesitate to unscrew the whole boat. It won't hurt anything at all and will make the whole process easier and faster IMHO. It's not like you're removing the deck from the hull. You're just removing the screws, cleaning, resealing and putting the screws back in the same place.
When I removed the deck from the hull when I redid my floors, I put it all back together and the old screw holes lined up perfectly. Maybe I just got lucky but I can't imagine that removing all the screws and not removing the deck would cause enough shift to cause an issue.
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The TBX Deck fit (originally made by WESMAR) is a difficult fit and you don't want to have it "spring apart" removing all the hull deck screws around the transom area is usually never a problem, however I would leave a screw near each corner partially threaded out for insurance. On the rest of the hull deck screws DO NOT remove them all at the same time (ok to do on the ADVANCE) You can remove the hull deck screws but every 3-4 ft. partially unscrew but leave a few screws in place to hold the deck in place. If this is still confusing call me. 985-542-4336
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The TBX Deck fit (originally made by WESMAR) is a difficult fit and you don't want to have it "spring apart" removing all the hull deck screws around the transom area is usually never a problem, however I would leave a screw near each corner partially threaded out for insurance. On the rest of the hull deck screws DO NOT remove them all at the same time (ok to do on the ADVANCE) You can remove the hull deck screws but every 3-4 ft. partially unscrew but leave a few screws in place to hold the deck in place. If this is still confusing call me. 985-542-4336
Thanks for the help I think that I get it, its not too hard of a concept. I just dont want to screw something up beyond my skill level to fix. Thats why I am trying to get as much info and guidance now before I give it a shot. This is my first boat and I have never dont any boat maintenance before on any boat so this is a huge learning process. I do know before I started water skiing I used to be really into stand up jet skis and getting the rubrail back on one of those I had was a huge pain it just did not want to fit back on. I just dont want that problem with my whole boat. Thanks again for all the guidance.
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The TBX Deck fit (originally made by WESMAR) is a difficult fit and you don't want to have it "spring apart" removing all the hull deck screws around the transom area is usually never a problem, however I would leave a screw near each corner partially threaded out for insurance. On the rest of the hull deck screws DO NOT remove them all at the same time (ok to do on the ADVANCE) You can remove the hull deck screws but every 3-4 ft. partially unscrew but leave a few screws in place to hold the deck in place. If this is still confusing call me. 985-542-4336
Thanks for the correction Ron.
See, there's a reason that Dan/Ron are here. They keep me in line. I completely glazed over the fact that this was a TBX. My bad.
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The TBX Deck fit (originally made by WESMAR) is a difficult fit and you don't want to have it "spring apart" removing all the hull deck screws around the transom area is usually never a problem, however I would leave a screw near each corner partially threaded out for insurance. On the rest of the hull deck screws DO NOT remove them all at the same time (ok to do on the ADVANCE) You can remove the hull deck screws but every 3-4 ft. partially unscrew but leave a few screws in place to hold the deck in place. If this is still confusing call me. 985-542-4336
No problem thanks for chiming in.
Thanks for the correction Ron.
See, there's a reason that Dan/Ron are here. They keep me in line. I completely glazed over the fact that this was a TBX. My bad.
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So I took my boat out again this weekend and did a bit of slalom but mostly barefooting.
Couple of questions, my tach was a little weird at some points. Most of the time wide open with a footer was 41-4200 rpm but sometimes it would go up to 5000 or more which I know is not right.
Second It happended more at first but it would hesitate just a bit when you would hit the throttle. I know I need to do plugs and things like that so it could be just something simple.
The tach problem makes me wonder because I am going to be setting up perfect pass and i know the rpm sensor connects to the back of the tach so I hope that will still work and it is just something inside the tach.
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It sounds like the tach is questionable at best. There might be a selector switch on the back of it to set it for 4, 6 or 8 cylinders. Cycling that switch several times may help if it has a bit of dirt or corrosion on it. Otherwise, it's best to confirm the wiring is good. Break out the VOM and start testing the wiring from the gauge to the dizzy and the ground. If all that is OK, I would say time for a new tach. As was stated earlier, it's probably the first gauge to go of all of them.
Another thing to confirm is that when it went to 5K RPM did the speed slow down while the RPM increased? Kinda like the transmission was slipping? Have you confirmed that the tranny fluid is full and a nice bright red color and it doesn't look like a strawberry shake? Have you changed the tranny fluid at all?
As for the hesitation, that is normally taken care of with proper tuning of the carb idle mixture and accelerator pump linkage but I would highly suggest doing a complete tune up to eliminate any possible hardware issues before that. I know it's been discussed here before on properly setting up the idle mixture and accelerator pump linkage.
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Blackfoot, I will try those tests if I take my boat out again it will probably be a work on the boat day. The tach did work for most of the day tho.
It did not slip at all it was running normal full speed just like it did at 4000 it just read different on the tach. I checked the tranny fluid and it needs to be changed but it is not milky or anything.
My motor is EFI so no carb adjustments. It still needs a basic tune up though. Thanks for the information
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Dammit, I keep forgetting this is one of those new fangled, high tech boats...LOL. You really gotta get something old school.
Then yes, tune up should help and definitely change the tranny fluid.
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Yeah thanks I will change it In the spring when the oil gets changed. I live in denver so at 5200 ft the EFI really helps and it will really help when I go to 7000 this summer up in the mountains. I probably would have went carb If I was at sea level because that is something I know I can work on.
Thanks again I will keep posted.