Water gauge driving me nuts

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted User YDKXO
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Deleted User YDKXO

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Since about midsummer last year we have had no functioning water gauge. Not a big deal in itself but a pain when you've got guests on board who don't have any sense of water conservation on a boat. A company in Croatia looked at it and charged me €200 for fitting a new sensor; the gauge seemed to work for a while but then stopped working. Whilst the boat was in Italy for the winter, they took a look at the problem and pronounced that the gauge itself was faulty and charged me €250 for changing that. We have now moved the boat back to Croatia and the gauge is still not working properly. I filled the water tank up for the first time after winter and the needle moved to the top of the range but since then has not moved despite the fact that we have been using water. I've contacted the Italian yard and all they can say is that the sensor could be incompatible with the gauge, whatever that means.
Anyone got any ideas?
 
Deleted User said:
Since about midsummer last year we have had no functioning water gauge. Not a big deal in itself but a pain when you've got guests on board who don't have any sense of water conservation on a boat. A company in Croatia looked at it and charged me €200 for fitting a new sensor; the gauge seemed to work for a while but then stopped working. Whilst the boat was in Italy for the winter, they took a look at the problem and pronounced that the gauge itself was faulty and charged me €250 for changing that. We have now moved the boat back to Croatia and the gauge is still not working properly. I filled the water tank up for the first time after winter and the needle moved to the top of the range but since then has not moved despite the fact that we have been using water. I've contacted the Italian yard and all they can say is that the sensor could be incompatible with the gauge, whatever that means.
Anyone got any ideas?
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No point messing around. If there is continuity in the wires twixt sender and gauge, just buy a whole new gauge and sender, matched. Catalogue items from Wema - about £70 all in. Lots of online sources. You need the height of the tank to get the right stroke on the sender. Then it's job done

Only catch is, and you don't say, that if the gauge "look" has to match a dashboard look then you won't want a non matching Wema gauge perhaps. Dunno about this. They have black faces and black or chrome bezel rings, and red illumination, fwiw
 
Get one of these and fit it to each of your fuel tanks, water tank and black water no electics or electronics and very accurate.

I have fitted them to three of my boats over the years excellent and very accurate for fuel burn.
 
Well given the cost so far is E450, maybe you should just buy Evian!

Sorry :-(

Did you ever resolve the kids drawing in the rear cabin?

On the assumption that the things is connected you could seek to get the spec of the gauge and the spec of the sender. The gauge will register full at xx ohms and empty at yy ohms. The sender likewise.

At a guess the range is different so as JFM says they are not matched. IF the range is the same between full and empty then you might be able to put a resistor in series to bring the full and empty measures into line, or into line enough that the gauge makes some sense - they are not that accurate anyway.
 
''the needle moved to the top of the range but since then has not moved despite the fact that we have been using water''

Sounds like your sender needs setting up with the gauge. If it's the float type all this usually means is bending the float arm or adjusting the float position on the arm such that
you get a full reading with the float in its highest position & an empty reading with the float in its lowest position.

450 Euro just for that....................so glad I can do my own repairs / maintenance :D
 
jfm said:
No point messing around. If there is continuity in the wires twixt sender and gauge, just buy a whole new gauge and sender, matched. Catalogue items from Wema - about £70 all in. Lots of online sources. You need the height of the tank to get the right stroke on the sender. Then it's job done

Only catch is, and you don't say, that if the gauge "look" has to match a dashboard look then you won't want a non matching Wema gauge perhaps. Dunno about this. They have black faces and black or chrome bezel rings, and red illumination, fwiw
Click to expand...

Thanks jfm. Yes you're right, I should just buy new stuff and hope that I can use the existing wiring. At this stage I dont care what it looks like so long as it tells the truth:mad:
 
I'd check the continuity in the system.

Had a fuel gauge stuck on full when a wire had corroded through between sender and gauge.
 
http://www.thetanktender.com/

As I said above without link :

Get one of these and fit it to each of your fuel tanks, water tank and black water no electics or electronics and very accurate.

I have fitted them to three of my boats over the years excellent and very accurate for fuel burn.

Sold in the UK BY IMP

Easy to fit as well.
 
jrudge said:
Did you ever resolve the kids drawing in the rear cabin?
Click to expand...
Yeah I did and it was a bit of a result. The upholsterer found a material that was a close match and instead of removing the existing panels and re-covering them, he just cut some new panels, covered them in the new material and glued them over the the existing panels. He did an excellent job and in the side cabins which are a bit dark anyway, you really can't see that the panels aren't original. €300 I don't begrudge spending. The only problem is that this technique wont work as well for more complex curved panels and the upholsterer refused to try it on a couple of other panels on my boat which are slightly damaged which is a shame. He said that in these cases he would prefer to remove the existing panels and re-cover them; the trouble is that removing existing panels on my boat is very difficult because Ferretti fix them very well and then cover the joins with timber fillets
 
Is it a long tube sender ?

If you kept the old sender they are easy to DIY repair.

They are very simple.

Usually fail because a solder joint has come adrift.

on board repair using a lighter and tea spoon.


the default is full power (gauge reads full)

If the sender fails it will show full tank

there will be 5 ish diodes stuffed in the tube, if they fail they cost a couple of pounds each and you dont need to find a bespoke ferreti one, any diode will do with the same markings.
could just be a read valve needs cleaning with a nail file.

If the tank is totally empty then you have 5-8 ish diodes all adding resistance , it is very unlikely that your gauge would still read full , I therefore doubt its a compatibility issue.
 
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