Repairing a Failed VDO Hour Meter (Cummins Engine)

Nellie's VDO hour meter stopped working. The tachometer, which contains the hour meter continued to work fine. This is a common problem on LNVTs. The hour meter's gears are plastic and they simply wear out with extended use. The choice is either to repair or replace the unit. I chose to repair it for the following reasons:

1. The repair cost is about the same as the price of a new unit.
2. A new unit would have a different bezel than all the other instruments on Nellie's panel.
3. The repaired hour meter can be updated to include all the hours since the meter broke (a new VDO's hour meter can't be updated--it must start at 0 hours).
4. New VDOs require a different wiring harness. The old one is plug and play.

Pictured above is the unit repaired by Lauderdale Speedometer and Compass. The hour reading was updated from 5642.35 to 5835.00. Total cost for repair and rejuvenation was just under $200. Hopefully it'll last another 5,600 hours.

Dave Howell
Nellie D. 37VT63

New Circuit Labels for the Breaker Panel

After 28 years the circuit labels on Nellie D. 37VT63's breaker panel were looking rather sad. As the breakers were repurposed to support things that didn't exist in 1987--like MFDs, routers, NMEA 2000 bus, etc.--the breaker's labels became a patchwork of different colors, fonts and sizes. They were, in a word, unattractive.

A neat solution is to have a trophy shop laser etch new, black plastic labels for the breaker panel. And, rather than have them do an individual placard for each breaker, one big placard can service an entire column of breakers. This gives a much more integrated look.

Three placards are needed, one AC and two DC. Here's the measured diagram for the AC circuit. The placard's outside dimension was chosen as it covers all traces of the old breaker labels. To make the new label easier to read a single line of all capital letters was specified. The trophy shop determined the proper font size, which was used for all three placards, by fitting the longest label, FLOOR LIGHTS WHITE, in the given space. Affixing the placards was a breeze using the provided, double sided, sticky tape. At $5/placard this project is not only effective it's affordable.

Hat tip to Jay a Sterling, Cruz-In 37VT74, who came up with this idea.