www.iFourWinns.com

First, the background...

I have a 2001 Four Winns Horizon 180 with a 5.0L Volvo Penta GL/SX. Since I bought the boat, the engine temp seemed to be high and I had posted a seperate thread documenting all I had done to remedy this issue. Turns out, after buying an infrared thermo gun and thoroughly checking the engine, it wasn't running hot at all. The highest temp I could register on the engine was about 165. After more research, I found that the VDO cluster in 99-01 Four Winns is a known problem, so I just lived with the issue for the past two seasons.

After the first trip of the season this past weekend, the issue is getting worse. Now, the fuel gauge will intermittently drop from full to empty, setting off the low fuel alarm and light while all the other gauges appear to indicate erratically. Checking online, I learned that the issue is most likely caused by a bad ground to the cluster. Four Winns even put out a Customer Service Bulletin on the issue (see the first link below).

More online research revealed that there are a few options for fixing this issue. One, buy a new instrument cluster to the tune of anywhere from $600-$800, a little pricey for my blood. Two, pull the cluster and send it to CDI Electronics, where they'll install a dedicated ground wire for around $250 (sounds a little expensive to add a single wire). Lastly, and the option I'm most interested in is to install the new ground wire myself. I've only been able to find two links that offer any assistance with this.

Here's the first...

http://www.cdielectronics.com/downloads ... nsDash.pdf

On page 13, it shows a CSB from Four Winns discussing the issue but offering only an overview of how to install the new ground wire.

The second is from an old post here...

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=833&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=15

The 9th post from the top shows how someone opened the cluster and installed the dedicated ground. There are other posters who posted links to photos of how to do the job but none of the links work now.

Now that I've written a novel on this issue, my question is this. Has anyone on this board had the same issue and tackled this project themselves? This seems to be a fairly common issue but most of the info I can find on the web is fairly dated. Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to offer.

Funny you should mention this - the EXACT same thing is happening on my 98' at the moment. For the time being I have cut the temp sending wire to the dash cluster and wired to an external gauge I picked up off e-bay for ~$20. I will probably run it this way for the season before building a new new gauge cluster using standard Faria gauges (a set runs about ~$200). My fuel gauge is a little odd in the same way as yours (of course did not surface during the test drive).

I have seen build threads on this board (and maybe google) where people made a cardboard template of the gauge cluster cut-out, used it to trace on a piece of ply, cut the ply, and installed new gauges into it. Search the forum and I'm sure it will pop up.

~400 for a questionable fix on a questionable cluster, or $200 and 4 hours of work (being generous) for a solid gauge setup. Choice is yours.....

Here is what I did.
http://www.smwebhead.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9061
I 2nd what Sanmaim said ....you can spend over $500 on replacement crap gauges or you can spend a bit less on good gauges that are easily replaced.
Rob

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Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Overdoing
2001 Horizon 180