Yanmar Engine Hour Repair. Save $800!

Welcome to yet another Technical Tuesday episode

In this week's episode we are looking at the LCD engine meter on a Yanmar Model B panel

Now it is common that these fail after a few years and so you are no longer able to accurately log your engine

hours. Now there's a few fixes for this. One is to completely get a new panel. However, that is a

really expensive part and it also resists the engine hours. Another thing is to put a separate

engine arm monitor somewhere else on the boat. However, we have found that a $30 part ordered

from the internet is a direct replacement for the LCD engine hour meter on this boat. So today

we're going to strip it all down, put it back together and hope we will have a working engine panel

this is a bit of a fiddly job and for this you are going to need some tools the first thing you're

going to need the replacement LCD panel it is about 30 dollars you can buy it from this source

up on the internet this is a European supplier there should be a supplier elsewhere in your region

however contact them if you have no joy the second thing you're going to need is a set of talks

screwdrivers for those that don't know they are the little five pointed star shaped bits and you will need

those to access parts of this engine panel. The third thing you are going to need is a set of

craft knives. Now you can buy these in Walmart, very, very sharp pointed blades and that will become

apparent later on in the video when you need these. So probably a $10 set of craft knives

And the final thing that you're going to need, and honestly, I know that I used to be a dentist

but these things are so important when you're doing fiddly boat jobs. Get yourself a set of dental

tools like a mirror, a probe and a set of long-nose tweezers. You can get these on Amazon

you can get them on eBay, but for doing small fiddly jobs, they are invaluable. And I know

that I'm going to use these a lot today. Now, access to the back of the engine panel is relatively

straightforward. Four Phillips screws hold the panel in place. Be careful with this. There is a rubber

gasket, and if it has been in place for a while, you can accidentally tear the gasket. So gently

remove the engine panel. The rev counter which contains the LCD engine hours is held

in place by four torque screws. Remove these put them somewhere safe. I always put them in

a glass and then remove the wiring loom gently by pulling it from the back of the rev counter This should come away pretty simply and once you done that you will be left with your engine hour meter with the broken LCD hours meter

Now, I cannot emphasize enough that this job needs to be done inside on a flat surface

There are three torque screws which hold the whole unit together. Again, with your torque screwdriver

simply remove those three screws and keep them somewhere safe. Now the unit will still all be held together by mechanical friction, so a little bit of downward pressure from a blunt object like a Philip screwdriver through the back of the unit should allow it all to pop out onto your work surface. There we go

With the plastic lens cover and the bezel somewhere safe, we are left with the inner workings of your engine hour meter and your rev counter

Now, this is a pretty delicate piece of machinery, so you are going to have to be pretty careful as you handle it

With the electronics exposed, we now need to remove the old LCD panel and the ribbon connector

Now, on the Yanmar panel, there are blobs which are insulating putty that look like old chewing gum

This is where your craft knife comes in super handy. You have got to very, very carefully remove all the excess insulation putty

So using a very sharp tip knife and taking obvious care with fingers, we sliced the way

at all the putty. Now, be aware you don't need to be overly cautious with the ribbon connector

as you are going to be replacing the unit in its entirety. On this panel, we found that the

insulating putty had to be removed from two places. Blob number one, which is where the ribbon

connector connected to the circuit board, that was quite a lot of work and you do have to be

careful of the components underneath, especially the adapter that goes into the circuit board

And area two is the insulating putty where the ribbon connector passes through to the front of the LCD panel

Now overall, removing the old insulating putty from the circuit board took about 60 minutes

I cannot tell you how careful you have to be. And yes, I did chop through the old ribbon connector

It was pretty worn and it kind of fell apart in my hands. But again, I have to emphasize you've got to be super careful and super slow in getting everything cleaned up

Once most of the putty had been removed from the circuit board, it was pretty easy to pull the male connector from the female connector on the circuit board

This releases the whole ribbon connector and allows you to continue cleaning the area up

Now, this close-up should show you what you are left with. Star number one shows you the circuit board with the female part of the adapter for the ribbon connector This should be very carefully cleaned to remove all excess putty Star 2 is the male part of the adapter for the ribbon connector This should be very carefully clean to remove all excess putty Star 2 is the male part of the ribbon connector

Now the white plastic plug is not connected to the ribbon itself

so you should gently remove this from the ribbon connector and put it to one side once you have cleared all the excess putty from it

You will need this later. Its function is simply to hold the ribbon connector onto the circuit board

once you have connected the new part. So it attaches by finger pressure

It's pretty easy to unclip and to clip back in. But be aware, try not to damage this part

It is super important to make sure that this all works at the end of the day. Now, the next step is to access the old LCD panel

To do this, you need to lift the printed face of the rev counter away from the body of the instrument

This is done using the tip of a craft knife. You do not need to remove the face completely

Just lift it sufficiently to gain access. to the old LCD engine hour meter

Removing the old LCD engine hour meter was pretty straightforward. It is held in place by contact adhesive

but there is a little gap at the back of the instrument panel where you can actually use a small fine instrument

in this case a dental probe to push through and by applying some pressure through the panel

onto the back of the LCD engine hour meter, you can push it out and remove it

Once complete, we can offer up the old panel to the new one to make sure they are the same size

we can then spend some time making sure that there is no excess putty

anywhere in the mechanism that will hamper our ability to put the new LCD panel back in

So with everything clean and ready to accept the new LCD engine hour meter

we need to push the new one back into place. The ribbon connector is pretty new

and so needs to be carefully pushed through the slot that allows it to be connected to the circuit board

In this case, my more than capable assistant, the engine hour meter while we gently and very gently bent using pair of tweezers, the ribbon

connector through the slot. Once the end of the ribbon connector had been pushed through the slot

to take it to the circuit board, we were able to relocate the new LCD engine hour meter in the

position that the previous engine hour meter occupied. It was pushed firmly into place using finger

pressure and there was enough contact adhesive left on the unit to not require any more adhesive to be

used. Similarly, the printed dial from the rev counter still had contact adhesive on it and so we just simply were able to push this back down to relocate it. If however you find that you need a little bit more contact adhesive, you can simply get this and apply it using a Q-tip

The new LCD panel in place we are left with the ribbon connector which now needs to be connected to the printed circuit board Now the connector needs to be pushed into place on the circuit board and that is held in place with that little white male plug that we kept from when we disassembled it

Now, attaching the ribbon connector to the printed circuit board involves utilizing that small white male plastic connector that we removed during the disassembly of the unit

The easiest way we found to do this was to push the ribbon connector onto the circuit board

make sure that everything lined up and that the contacts were in place with the circuit board

And once we had that in place using some light finger pressure, maintaining its position

we then took the small male white plastic connector. And all this does is simply holds everything in place

That clicks in. And once you've done that, you have a secure ribbon connector against a circuit board

as you can see here. From here on in, we need to reassemble the unit

put the guts of the dial and the instrument back into its case

They have to align in a certain way, but it should all become pretty apparent. Then apply the bezel, the lens

and the retaining screws at the back should be pushed in place, and everything is secure

And once this is done, it is simply a question of taking the dial

reinserting it into the engine panel and making sure that everything works correctly

So now that's all fitted, let's have a look and see if we've got our engine hours back

So I'm pretty pleased with that a $30 part rather than replacing a whole $800 engine panel

In addition to that, I managed to preserve the engine hours because the chip is still the original chip that holds the data

So as you may have noticed, while I was taking the engine panel apart, replace the decal sticker on the front of the engine panel

This is a $50 part, but again, the UV gets to it, and I'll put a link to that decal there

Again, that is a really simple. That was a two-minute job. Just take the old chipped panel off and put a new decal on

So all good there. Anyway, I really hope you enjoyed that technical Tuesday

We obviously will back with more technical Tuesdays covering a whole variety of different topics

relating to boating, sailing, and all different. aspects of the life that we lead. So if you haven't already done so, feel free to subscribe

Click down there and also click the notification bells so you don't miss any more episodes

Hope you enjoyed that. Goodbye