www.iFourWinns.com :: View topic - Bad Oil Pressure Indications (VDO)

I installed the new FW gauge panel I received from A&A Marine. Removing the old panel on my 99 FW 245 Sundowner was pretty easy. Four plastic wingnuts hold the panel from behind. Once these are removed and the 24 space AMP harness connector is unplugged, the panel comes out from behind. The woodgrain trim surround pops right out. The new panel is installed by first drilling two small pilot holes through the top of the new panel. Locations for these holes are pre-located in the new panel. Once this is done, the panel is inserted into the dash opening and adjusted so that it fits evenly. A drill is used to put two holes in the top inside of the dash binnacle that coincide with the two pre-drilled pilot holes in the trim surround. After fastening the new panel, the 24 pin AMP connector is mated to the boat wiring harness removed during removal of the old gauges. That’s it! All guages came to life as soon as the engine was started up.

Author:	LouC [ Sat Mar 16, 2019 8:44 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Bad Oil Pressure Indications (VDO)
I think what you do is put it up on a photo hosting site and then can link it to here. for instance... here's a few of mine...these are of my 4.3 top end rebuild after it blew both head gaskets a couple of years after a bad overheat. The last 2 are of it running after it was all back together. I use dropbox. https://www.dropbox.com/s/tr23hyy6srwfn ... l.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/2pu8ac8x71e5u ... l.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/k18krrafa3489 ... k.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/8fhnjbtutfjej ... 2.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/1yyytu26xgohe ... 1.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/evphffy24u0cy ... 0.MOV?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/otc4vr4081vul ... 1.MOV?dl=0

Author:	George Des [ Sun Mar 17, 2019 1:45 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Bad Oil Pressure Indications (VDO)
Ya! I looked at that. Too much trouble to go through all that. If and when the Forum comes up with a simpler method of posting photos, I will. In the meantime, my new set of dash guages looks exactly like the others that have been posted. Again the installation was a simple plug and play and look much better than the original auto style setup

Author:	rpengr [ Thu May 16, 2019 10:47 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Bad Oil Pressure Indications (VDO)
George Des wrote: I installed the new FW gauge panel I received from A&A Marine. Removing the old panel on my 99 FW 245 Sundowner was pretty easy. Four plastic wingnuts hold the panel from behind. Once these are removed and the 24 space AMP harness connector is unplugged, the panel comes out from behind. The woodgrain trim surround pops right out. The new panel is installed by first drilling two small pilot holes through the top of the new panel. Locations for these holes are pre-located in the new panel. Once this is done, the panel is inserted into the dash opening and adjusted so that it fits evenly. A drill is used to put two holes in the top inside of the dash binnacle that coincide with the two pre-drilled pilot holes in the trim surround. After fastening the new panel, the 24 pin AMP connector is mated to the boat wiring harness removed during removal of the old gauges. That’s it! All guages came to life as soon as the engine was started up. That's great. amazing that there is no wiring to do except for connect the harness. I had my boat out this weekend, and the VDO cluster was working good. I only heard the low pressure alarm a couple times for 3-5 seconds on a couple of startups... and my mechanical guage in the engine compartment always shows the oil pressure jumping right up to proper pressure. I'll do the A&A kit when my VDO finally gives out, but at 19+ years it's still going strong (mostly). LouC that top end rebuild looks great!

Author:	George Des [ Fri May 17, 2019 4:27 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Bad Oil Pressure Indications (VDO)
Yes, it is pretty much a plug and play with the way they included the mating connector for the exiting harness. I did have some intermittent issues again with the oil pressure not registering on the new gauges. Fortunately, I had left the mechanical gauge in place and verified that I did have oil pressure. So after narrowing this issue down, I finally ran a new 18ga light blue line from the sender to the harness connector in the dash. Had to purchase the correct connector pins and a crimping tool to this. Oil pressure gauge working correctly. It should! Everything including the sender on back has now been replaced!!

Author:	LouC [ Sat May 18, 2019 9:37 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Bad Oil Pressure Indications (VDO)
Glad there was a satisfactory resolution to this problem. The funny thing is I bought a set of Faria gauges to replace my now 31 year old Medallion gauges about 5 years ago but they are still sitting on a shelf in the garage because all the old Medallion gauges still work, just fine! Hopefully I can get a few years out of the top end overhaul. It was not really a hard job, what took the longest was cleaning out the bolt holes in the block and the block deck surface for the new head gaskets. I replaced all the head bolts because the originals were pretty corroded (raw water cooling in salt water). If it doesn't last I have some options, I can still get a new GM marine 4.3 long block add closed cooling and start over again. As part of the this process I also learned to rebuild the Rochester Quadrajet and despite the complexity of this carb, it was not a hard job either, in fact they are easier to take apart than a Holley from my experience. I tried the Holley 4160 thinking the Q-Jet was too old to work well after a rebuild and it turned out to be a mistake. The Holley even though supposed calibrated for the 4.3 never ran right, much too rich. To my surprise I took the Q-Jet apart, it was pretty clean inside, just gave it a good cleaning, blew everything out with compressed air re-assembled with new gaskets and it started up and ran 100% better. So now I have a Holley 4160 that is practically new also sitting on that shelf in the garage, lol. Over the summer I am going to go through it to find out what was wrong with it, I took off the primary metering block and did not find any clogged passages or anything to explain the rich running. Next I will pull off the secondary side to check that. After that I might drop it off at the local carb shop and see what they say. Just out of curiosity.

www.iFourWinns.com https://www.smwebhead.com/phpBB3/

Bad Oil Pressure Indications (VDO) https://www.smwebhead.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=14643	Page 2 of 2

Author:	yrless11 [ Fri Jul 31, 2020 8:08 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Bad Oil Pressure Indications (VDO)
George Des wrote: I installed the new FW gauge panel I received from A&A Marine. Removing the old panel on my 99 FW 245 Sundowner was pretty easy. Four plastic wingnuts hold the panel from behind. Once these are removed and the 24 space AMP harness connector is unplugged, the panel comes out from behind. The woodgrain trim surround pops right out. The new panel is installed by first drilling two small pilot holes through the top of the new panel. Locations for these holes are pre-located in the new panel. Once this is done, the panel is inserted into the dash opening and adjusted so that it fits evenly. A drill is used to put two holes in the top inside of the dash binnacle that coincide with the two pre-drilled pilot holes in the trim surround. After fastening the new panel, the 24 pin AMP connector is mated to the boat wiring harness removed during removal of the old gauges. That’s it! All guages came to life as soon as the engine was started up. Curious how much the replacement set was at a&a? I just sent them an inquiry as my vdo cluster just died.

Author:	rpengr [ Wed Mar 03, 2021 10:05 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Bad Oil Pressure Indications (VDO)
I'm just catching up on my old thread. I'm glad George was able to add the new Faria replacement cluster from A & A marine. I still have the intermittent problem. When the low oil pressure alarm sounds, I unplug the fuse to the whole gage cluster, use the boat about a half hour, and can usually plug the fuse back in and it works fine the rest of the day. (of course I checked the mechanical oil pressure gage I added to verify oil-pressure). My how the years have gone by... Ray

Author:	LouC [ Thu Mar 04, 2021 7:31 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Bad Oil Pressure Indications (VDO)
Good to hear from you Ray! It may be that heat/resistance builds up and causes erroneous readings then when it’s unplugged it goes back to normal. Still haven’t changed my old gauges. This spring I have to repair some rot in the starboard side coaming panel and will replace the old OMC control with the Seastar Ch 1700 remote control I bought some years back and never installed. Hopefully everyone has a good season!

Author:	George Des [ Tue Mar 23, 2021 7:45 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Bad Oil Pressure Indications (VDO)
It may be worth a try to run a wire from the sender directly to the gauge like I finally did after replacing everything that could contribute to this issue. I know that this violated all the rules of “good troubleshooting”, but in the end I got a working oil pressure gage. Also, was able to determine that a PO had done some work on the engine harness and didn’t do the best job in splicing and covering them. Not sure what kind of wire he used but I suspect it wasn’t marine grade since there was lots of corrosion. This may have been the culprit. I have a used replacement engine harness that I have completely stripped of covering and verified every connection. When I get some time I will eventually replace the one on the boat. Love the replacement dash unit. Just need to replace the trim sender unit on the outdrive now. I will wait til I remove the outdrive for a gimbal bearing replacement as this will allow better access to the sender entry point through the transom.

Page 2 of 2	All times are UTC - 6 hours [ DST ]
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group http://www.phpbb.com/