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Mercury 2002 115 elpto
motor serial #ot466228

1993 BW 17 Outrage with Quik Silver tachometer & tilt trim gauges that dont show the first sign of life. Charging gauge & speedo both functioning perfectly. Is there anywhere to start with trouble shooting? Seems like a common wire might be the issue? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

UPDATE....started to troubleshoot and noted when turned ignition key to on both tilt/trim gauge & Tach twitch....the tilt/trim which stays pegged to left actually bumps ever so slightly to right and settles back to peg left...tach which floats to 200 to 300 rpms when when ignitin is off then zeros out with ignition on, but wont come off zero with engine running...

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I am familiar with Mercury's gauges.

First of all, check wiring to the back of the gauges. The tach should have a gray wire connected to the sender terminal. The trim gauge would have a brown wire with white stripe connected to the sender terminal. Also check that the ignition (purple) and negative (black) wires are OK, and with no shorts.

It is not likely that the gauges are bad. So the problem is probably the senders. The trim sender is on the engine bracket. Check it's adjustment by rotating it, and see if the gauge reponds. It may simply need re-setting. If not, it's bad. Mercury trim senders are famous for not working well and expensive to replace! I don't even bother with them anymore.

Loss of a tach signal usually means the engine rectifier is bad. It is a simple part to buy and replace. You should first check the pole selector setting on the tach. For most 2-strokes it is "6". If it has moved off setting, or on the wrong setting, it will affect tach readings. Also try rotating the selector switch back and forth several times using a screwdriver blade, just in case the contacts are simply corroded or losing contact. That should clean them up.