Control panel

[rappareems]

To Stu and Ron et al...

Have replaced the control panel and harness.  We installed the new 12 bar terminal strip.  One wire, tan goes direct to guage from heat sending unit on engine.  #12 brown and black wire says comes from "temperatiure switch", do not understand.  We hooked to same sending unit off engine to tan and black wire on control panel, resulting in the alarm not going off with start of engine... when we removed #12 tan and black from panel alarm goes off.  Do we need this extra wire?  And what is "temperature switch on schematic"?  Remember I have the 1986 engine that I believe was only used that first year.  Also guage lights are constantly on with ignition and seemed to generate quite a bit of heat... normal?

Don't chastise about what I should have done first. ;-)

Mark

[hump180]

If you have the new style engine panel it is a bit different than the original in respect to the temparature alarm. On the old panel style there was a circuit board attached to the temparature guage that triggered the alarm at a certain needle/gauge indication. On the new style, there is a separate circuit for the temaprature alarm, which requires tapping a temparature switch into the thermostat housing or purchasing a more recent style thermostat housing from westerbeke/universal. Without this installation you have no funtional temparature alarm.

If I am understanding this correctly, and your alarm would not shut off at start up, the reason would be that you effectively grounded the alarm (on the temp sender) so it had constant power. Normally the temparature switch is not grounded until an overheat condition trips the switch and makes it contact ground completing the circuit and hence the sounding of the alarm. This is the same way that the oil temparature works - it is grounded with the ignition on - which gives an intermittent alarm until pressure builds and the switch opens.

Here is what you need:
http://shop.torresen.com/marine_diesel_direct/Universal/index.php?p=details&mfc=Westerbeke&sku=30125

Here is some discussion from the board:
http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,2305.0.html
http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,4167.0.html

[rappareems]

Thanks, great help... that should do it.

Mark

[Ron Hill]

Mark : The instrument lights always come on when the ignition switch is ON.  (to keep the moisture out)

Usually the temp wire to a sender (for a gage - solid brown wire) is held on the probe in the engine with a nut.  The temp wire from a switch (just an alarm) is a "slide on" connection. 

[rappareems]

Thanks Ron I figured that was the case.