Prologica1
Active Member
Hi All
Fired up the engine on our UFO 34 today and detected smoke in engine compartment - looked to be coming from behind engine control panel. At first we thought it was burning oil as we had recent problem with leak in hose to oil pressure gauge but no new oil leakage found.
We dismantled the control panel and found wire connected to tachometer was burnt through, both the black and red (think these are ground and signal).
We found some replacement cable aboard of (we think) same gauge, crimped on new connectors and replaced the wires which run between tachometer and sender unit. Tested with voltmeter and connections were good.
Started engine and tachometer was reading fine. But within two minutes there was smoke again. This time we found the wire had melted at the sender end, not the tachometer end.
We disconnected the cable at the sender unit and tested the engine again. The engine ran fine, no smoke or evidence of melting wires and no wires hot to the touch (we focused on wires from alternator in case there was a regulator fault). All other electrical equipment was operating apparently fine.
Chandler reckons the wire we used was fine and is thinking fault lies in sender unit. Searching on web, there is unrelated talk of a poor ground connection causing melting wires.
Can anyone shed any more light before we call out the engineer? We are thinking that engine should be ok to use with the tachometer disconnected for now.
Thanks for any insights on this.
regards
David
Fired up the engine on our UFO 34 today and detected smoke in engine compartment - looked to be coming from behind engine control panel. At first we thought it was burning oil as we had recent problem with leak in hose to oil pressure gauge but no new oil leakage found.
We dismantled the control panel and found wire connected to tachometer was burnt through, both the black and red (think these are ground and signal).
We found some replacement cable aboard of (we think) same gauge, crimped on new connectors and replaced the wires which run between tachometer and sender unit. Tested with voltmeter and connections were good.
Started engine and tachometer was reading fine. But within two minutes there was smoke again. This time we found the wire had melted at the sender end, not the tachometer end.
We disconnected the cable at the sender unit and tested the engine again. The engine ran fine, no smoke or evidence of melting wires and no wires hot to the touch (we focused on wires from alternator in case there was a regulator fault). All other electrical equipment was operating apparently fine.
Chandler reckons the wire we used was fine and is thinking fault lies in sender unit. Searching on web, there is unrelated talk of a poor ground connection causing melting wires.
Can anyone shed any more light before we call out the engineer? We are thinking that engine should be ok to use with the tachometer disconnected for now.
Thanks for any insights on this.
regards
David