Only the necessities: '83 Lund Pike 16D w/35hp Johnson

[MuskyRangler]

This is our boat. We've put several hours on it since we bought it a couple months back. It's running good, however I had an issue the last trip out where the fogging screw in the bottom of the carburetor bowl fell out into the housing and was spewing gas and I didn't notice because I was kind of putzing along, then was out of fuel 8x's faster than I should've been in pretty rough water solo.

My thought is that I'd like to add mechanical gauges, Fuel, Tach, Water pressure, engine temp. Being that my motor is an '81 I'm wondering what the most reliable way to do this would be? Is one brand of gauges better than others?

 

[wmk0002]

For water pressure, you can drill and tap a fitting in the water jacket and run a hose to the gauge.

For the tach, you will need a signal wire coming off of the stator which I would suspect your motor doesn't have. You can get extended length inductive tachs but not sure they make an analog version that would match the rest.

I also doubt the motor has a temp switch on it. If it does, it prob one that is either on or off to send signal to an overheat buzzer once it hits certain temp. I can't imagine it would be a resistance based one which showed a linear reading. I'm sure there are some aftermarket options out there though or at worst some diy solutions I'm just not familiar with any.

Are you using portable fuel tanks? Not aware of any bolt on fuel sending units for those but there may be. The sending units themselves are pretty basic....the only thing with adapting one onto a portable tank is having to cut a hole in the tank to mount it which may compromise it. If you have or want to upgrade to a custom permanent metallic fuel tank, adding a sending unit is really easy. If you have a fixed plastic tank it should have a sending unit on it already or at least a place to mount one.

I like Faria gauges, personally.

 

[thill]

The screw at the bottom of the carb is the drain screw. That would drain a lot of fuel fast! Hope you didn't starve your engine and hurt it.

The FIRST thing you need is an overheat alarm buzzer. It will be a tan wire. You hook keyed power (purple wire from the key switch) to one wire of the buzzer and the tan wire to the other one. The overheat sensor grounds the tan wire when it gets hot enough, making the buzzer go off. You can use any 12V buzzer for that, but water resistant is nice. It's mounted under the console, so it doesn't matter too.

Next, you need a tachometer. There may be a plug you can connect to in the front of your side-mount shifter box, but your 2-handle shift box probably doesn't have the plug

So you probably need to find the wires at the end of the engine cable that connects to your key switch and use the colors below to connect to your tach:

Purple= keyed power,
Black = Ground,
Gray= Tach signal

If you have running lights, splice into that wire and run one to power the backlight for your gauges. If you can, use BLUE wire for backlighting.

Once connected, go to Faria.com to look up how to set the switch on the back of the tach. I can't remember the number for that motor.

For that motor, you really don't need engine temp or water pressure, but installing is described above. A true temp gauge sensor may be available, but they are pretty expensive.

I recommend that, instead, you put in a new impeller and clean out the outlet hose and nozzle, and observe how strong the tell-tale "pee stream" is. There is your water pressure gauge. If you notice the pressure decreasing, replace the impeller, after making sure there is no debris in the outlet hose or nozzle.

Great looking boat, I hope it serves you well!

 

[Tall Tiller]

Nice boat! I really like little boats with hoods.
I have a 1974 Lund R14 that is in the process of a restoration, except that is now on hold because of a home/land purchase, that is in need of its own restoration.

 

[airshot]

View attachment 115204

This is our boat. We've put several hours on it since we bought it a couple months back. It's running good, however I had an issue the last trip out where the fogging screw in the bottom of the carburetor bowl fell out into the housing and was spewing gas and I didn't notice because I was kind of putzing along, then was out of fuel 8x's faster than I should've been in pretty rough water solo.

My thought is that I'd like to add mechanical gauges, Fuel, Tach, Water pressure, engine temp. Being that my motor is an '81 I'm wondering what the most reliable way to do this would be? Is one brand of gauges better than others?

Nice looking boat as are the little captains !! Be sure to replace the impellor and keep an eye on the telltale stream. That is what I do, glance at the pee stream every so often, no difference than looking at a gage. Monitor your fuel useage for a while, soon you will know how far, hiw long you can run. If a portable tank, get a spare so you have backup. Uf you have a builtin tank, easy to add a gage..tach is a good gage, with these you can tune yiur boat for best performance, however....with a couple young boys, it may not be long before getting a bigger motor, as time on the water with toys will likely happen as the boys grow. No guarentees on any outboard, things do happen, but in all honesty, they are very dependable and not often leave you stranded. Have a backup plan just in case!! On my 16' , I also have a bow mount trolling motor that could get me back in, in an emergency. I also added a little 2.2 hp merc kicker motor, which I just had to use on monday due to an unforseen electrical short in my main engine. Long slow ride, but it got me back in!! Consider adding things to help you in case an issue arrises, rather than cheese cake pretty looking things just for looks. The more you use your boat, the more ideas you will have.