Pretty sure it's an earth problem.....

[Portholme]

.....but I'm not sure where to start.

Yesterday in boisterous conditions the dials on the boat stopped working. The engine is a Yamaha F100 and if I describe what happened maybe someone will help me with where to start my search.

The tacho stopped reading and maxed out at 7000rpm, jammed against the stopper. the multi guage (fuel, trip, battery, speed) stopped working at all and blanked out. The tilt and trim stopped working but the VHF and two GPS units were fine (thank goodness).

When we got back to the ramp i cut the engine at the ignition key, turned it back on and everything worked fine!

I'm thinking this might be either a simple earth (if so where) or could it be an iginiton key barrel issue????

Hope someone can help.

[thomas]

Sounds like the engine electronics just crashed and when you switched it off and on again is re booted, if that's the right terminology.

My Merc has done similar things and my Freelander 2 did it all the time, worth getting engineer to plug it in and check it though.

[donald463]

I had similar problem with yamaha 60 4 stroke. after winter lay up.When operating tilt/trim engine cut out, gauges stopped but chart plotter still working. Turned ignition off and on and everything OK for a couple of minutes then same happened again.
Traced mine to battery isolator. Sprayed WD40 and worked contacts never had a problem since. I assume it was happy with small currents but not larger ones.