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.

Finally--the splash photo!

It's been a long road but Nellie went feet wet yesterday.  She passed her leak check--but not without incident.  Spilling water rudely reminded me that I still needed to install the heat exchanger zinc.  We ran her through her paces in the river without incident before returning to the yard's dock.  The winds are contrary and blowing up to 20kts.  Not an ideal day for the four hour sea trial home.

Antifouling paint job summary: We went through four gallons of Pettit Ultima SR60 bottom paint.  We used 1/4" nap paint rollers and where necessary, paint brushes, to apply the paint.  This gave us two coats all around and four,1' wide coats, on the waterline.  There was no paint to spare. 

Anti Fouling Green

It took two gallons of Pettit's Ultra SR60 to put one coat on the bottom, running gear and bow thruster, and two coats on the waterline. We even have a little left to put under the jack stands.

The 1/4 nap roller covers worked well. Once mixed the paint stayed mixed--they always warn about the copper falling to the bottom.

Weather permitting, tomorrow we'll get the last two gallons of paint on.

Bootstripe Day Two

After sanding with 320 grit we got the second coat on.
So much for a pint being able to do the bootstripe. The pint got us 1-1/2 times around. Looks like she'll need three and maybe four coats.

Bootstripe Beginngs

Started painting the 2-3/4" tall bootstripe today using Interlux white polyurethane. Interlux recommends sanding between coats with 220 grit. We used small foam rollers to apply the paint and then tipped it out with a paint brush. It's going to take at least three coats.

Coat Five: It's a Wrap!

Yea, I know, the fifth coat was supposed to be white. Here's the story--it took 1-1/2 gallons to finish up today; one gallon of white and half a gallon of grey. Who said Interlux 2000E only comes in white and grey? It comes in light grey too ;-)

So here's what we learned after applying five coats of Interlux 2000E:

Walmart's 1/4" nap rollers work great
Mix only enough 2000E to do 1/2 the hull (about 1 gallon)
Lightly Sand the hull between coats
Alternate the color of each coat
Used new pans ($1 each at Dollar Tree), roller covers ($6 for 2 at Walmart) and brushes ($1 each at Dollar Tree) with each new load of 2000E
Put new tape along the waterline after each coat
Sand the the ridge smooth at the waterline after each coat.