Active Active   Unanswered Unanswered

1959 283 Tachometer off by 30%

Keeping your powerboat under power is a lot easier with good advice. Post your power systems questions here.

Moderators: Don Ayers, Al Benton, Don Vogt

donald.stahl
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:25 pm
Contact:

1959 283 Tachometer off by 30%

Post by donald.stahl » Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:15 pm

I recently bought a 1959 Ski Boat with the flywheel forward 283. Carburetor needed a complete rebuild and tune and I took care of that- but the boat did not seem to be moving as fast as I would have expected for the RPM I was seeing.

In order to fine tune the carburetor I brought out my digital timing light with tach readout only to realize that the tach in the instrument cluster is reading over by 30%. When the dash shows 1000 RPM the digital tach shows 700. When the dash shows 4000 RPM the digital tach shows just 3000.

Any idea what I should be checking to locate the source of this error? I would suspect a problem with the instrument itself but the error is identical across the boat- almost as if the wrong drive gear was installed.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

User avatar
drrot
Posts: 2052
Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2005 12:28 pm
Location: Three Lakes, WI
Contact:

Re: 1959 283 Tachometer off by 30%

Post by drrot » Tue Sep 08, 2020 7:09 am

There is an angle adapter on top of the engine. Check that. They come in different ratios. If not 1-1 it is usually marked.
Jim Staib
www.finewoodboats.com


1947 Penn Yan 12' Cartopper WXH474611
1950 Chris-Craft 22' Sportsman U-22-1532
1957 Chris-Craft 26' Sea Skiff SK-26-515
1968 Century 17' Resorter FG-68-174

donald.stahl
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:25 pm
Contact:

Re: 1959 283 Tachometer off by 30%

Post by donald.stahl » Tue Sep 08, 2020 8:36 pm

Yep - I'm familiar with the adapter but did not know what ratio I should find or that it would be marked. I'll check it out tomorrow.

Does anyone know what the ratio should be for this engine?

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 23 guests