Volvo Penta 2030 Hour Metre

[FrancisRutter]

Dorvic has a Volvo Penta 2030 engine. It has a combined rev counter/ hour metre, but when I bought her the hour metre was US and I was told that a replacement VP one was upwards of £200 which seemed excessive.

A recent post here recommended a simple electric hour metre and so I have bought one. It just has two spade terminals, and I suppose that if I connect it somehow to the switch, it will measure the time that the switch is turned on.

My problem is that I find circuit diagrams very difficult to interpret. I have looked at the circuit diagram for the ‘Standard Instrument panel with key switch’ and I have looked at the underside of the instrument panel. Where do I connect the new hour metre?

The switch has 6 terminals, one of which is not used. The others have a purple wire, a red/blue wire, a red wire, a red and yellow wire, and an orange wire. There seems to be a 14v current across the R/B and the R wires.

When I come to the rev counter/hour metre there are 4 terminals, one with two Red/Blue wires, one with a Blue wire, and across the other side are two, larger gauge Gray wires. There is a 14v current from the RB wire to any of the others. I presume that the R/B and the B wired terminals are the ones for the US hour metre .

 

[VicS]

I think the simplest will be to connect it to the + and - terminals of the tacho/ hour meter. A small fuse in the connection to the + might be prudent. It will then run all the time the power is on to the existing tacho and hour meter. Other connections on there are to the illuminating bulb and from the sensor on the engine, which on this one appears to be a "W" terminal on the alternator.

Sorry I am assuming you can see those markings on the tacho. The + terminal has the 2 red/blue wires on it. The - terminal should have one or two black wires on it.

The blue wire is the supply to the illumination bulb and the grey wires (one should be grey/ black) are the input connections to the tacho

You dont seem to have found the negative at the moment. There should also be a negative, black, connection to the illuminating bulb.

On the key switch red is the incoming positive supply, red/blue is the supply to the tacho +ve, oil pressure, voltmeter and temperature gauges (if fitted), orange is the supply to the glowplug relay, red/yellow is the supply to the starter solenoid (to start the engine) the purple (or is it violet) is energised when the keyswitch is turned backwards from the OFF postion (but I have not followed it to anything yet).

 

[FrancisRutter]

Thanks, Vic, I will have another look in the light of what you say.

Francis