Carver Owners Forum

Just got the Wild Herron back from a re-power job. Replaced the troublesome Volvo Penta 5.7GXil-C engines with MerCruiser 383 MAG Strokers. Breaking them in today.

Been told that it is illegal to reset the Hobbs meters even though the engines have zero time (other than testing at MerCruiser, during the installation, and the short cruise from installation location to my slip (thinking we are at 2 hours or less). Is this true? Certainly showing the hours against the removed engines is more misleading than zeroing them out.

I suppose the only issue may be if I resell but the potential buyer would get the actual hours from the Merc ECMs. So, no real problems that I can see.

Those are called "engine hour meters" they should go with the engines. New engines, new "0" meters. Just my 2c.
I have not heard of a law regarding the installing new meters with new engines.

Rich

Good luck with your new engines, you could always put new meters, then keep old ones with the docs, unless there is some rules against it ......as you say the new ecm's will have all the hours and data anyway.......

rcoff512 wrote:Source of the post Those are called "engine hour meters" they should go with the engines. New engines, new "0" meters. Just my 2c....
Rich

Right, but they are built into the tach on the gauges that originally came with the 360SS. I decided to keep the old gauges to lower the near term costs.

I did however spring for a Mercury VesselView Mobile module. It will display the engine hours (as well as many many other engine parameters) directly from the ECMs to my tablet/smartphone. Since I don't have a SmartCraft CAN bus & gauge system, I have to first install at least some portion of that before I can get VesselView to display the data from both engines. Unfortunately the CAN termination resistor module was not installed on the engine bus, so I must wait another week for one to be shipped. I'll move this discussion to the electronics forum once I have the VesselView Mobile installed next weekend.

I'm very interested in seeing your project of adding VesselView. I've wanted to add the SmartCraft and such, (well.... I've wanted to, but haven't done much research) but have not entered that rabbit hole yet. On my previous boat I added flow meters and a nema2000 backbone that was easy to add sensors (too easy.... some things do not really need to be monitored.. . ) and monitors too. looking forward to your report.

Capt Bob,
I moved the VesselView discussion to the Electronics forum. Nothing to report yet as the CAN termination resistor was not on the new engine's wire harness.