www.iFourWinns.com

Just digging into this thread. The added ground wire from the VDO has to go directly to the battery or engine ground. Going through the fuse panel is not helping at all. See link below and dowload FourWinns Dash module.

http://cdielectronics.com/Downloads/tab ... fault.aspx

Trim Sender:
Secondly. Under your dash, pull the plug and check the resistance between the purple/white wire and ground. When the drive is down, the resistance should read 10-12 ohms.

If you are reading "open", then you may have sender issue.

If you are reading a resistance between 50 and 600 ohms, the sender is out of adjustment and out of the range of the VDO gauge. If it is out of adjustment, we can talk about that since it may require more than loosening the screws.

Sorry...I didn't read carefully enough that you already ran the ground directly to the battery.

Another tid bit....my 2000 Horizon 180 w/ VDO also has a marine islolation unit.

http://www.sso-usa.com/marine/Technical ... lation.pdf

Verdict is out if these are useful once the ground is brought back to the battery but worth reading. Link talks about probelms this MCIU attempted to fix.

Had the chance to test the speedo and trim sender. The trim sender ranged from 0 - 350 - infinte ohms. We removed it from the outdrive and slowly rotated it through 360º. You can feel rough spots as you rotate it so I'm thinking the coils within it may be corroded. I plan on squirting some contact cleaner in the unit to see if it won't clean itself. Anyone no if the trim sender is a wound coil or carbon?

The speedometer wheel was not sending the 8v that I read about. We also tested power to shield we had 4.3k ohms. Anyone with opinions on that?

Side note - When we removed the paddle wheel assembly from the transom there was nothing in the way of "guts" to this thing. Hard to believe the temp sensor is in there as well.

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2000 Horizon 230

My sender acted the same way with the "flat" spot but went to 450 ohms. I would think it is fine since our boats only care about the 10-50 ohm range.

Did you measure the resistance at the engine harness or the dash? Also, did your harness plug into the Marine isolation unit "black box" or directly into the dash. Once I plugged the harness directly into the dash, my gauge worked. I then just by-passed the "box" for that circuit only. Since my was also a 2000 it may be the same.

Hope this helps.

Matt,

We checked it at the dash. It's currently plugged into the marine isolation unit. I understand what you mean when you plugged the harness directly to the cluster but not sure about when you say you by-passed that circuit only. Did you remove the pins for that circuit from the black box harness and replace them in the harness that plugs into the dash?

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2000 Horizon 230

To test, I plugged the boat harness directly into the dash and the gauge worked fine for the first time since I've owned the boat. (YEA!!)

(NOTE: Adjust your sender so that you are reading 10-12 ohms at the dash with the drive all the way down.)

I marked the location on the female dash block to determine where the trim wire circuit plugged in (aka pin 6). I then plugged the harness from the isoloation unit back in to the dash determine which wire went into pin 6 since the wires were not color coded.

From there, I pulled the pin with the purple/white wire out of the boat harness and the appropriate pin out of the isolation unit harness (at the isolation unit)....wrapped the two pins together tightly with 18 gauge wire and shrunk wrapped.

So effectively, I by-passed the isolation unit for that circuit only.

Beautiful! I'll give it a whirl and let you know.

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2000 Horizon 230