Guages Do Not Work...and a few other things...

[PonyFiveO]

Howdy fellas!
I think I am about to start my boating season, but I have to take care of a few things first. When I bought the boat last year, I knew for sure that the oil pressure guage did not work, so I had attached a mechanical guage to check pressure before finalizing the sale. When I took it out the first time, we ran out of gas because apparently, the gas guage did not work. Come to find out that the only guage that worked was the tach! The last time I took it out, at the end of our outing, at full throttle the tach only registered about 2.5 to 3k. So officially, I think I can say that NONE of my guages are working.
SOOooooo before I take it out again, I would like to take care of this issue. Where should I start? Is there a common ground that could be the cause of ALL the guages not working? Should I rewire everything and start from scratch? The electrical distribution block on the back of the motor looks like it has seen better days.
I think after that is taken care of, I will finally install the headers I got from Lakes, along with the Edelbrock Victor intake. When I have the intake and headers on, how many jets up should I go up on the carb, and how much timming at what RPM should I set it at?
Lakes schooled me on this once, but I forgot :)
btw, its a bone stock Harman Marine 460.
Thanks!

[Rexone]

Being that "all" the gauges aren't working I'd start by confirming with a test light that you actually have power to the gauges (which are commonly wired from a single ignition switched hot).
Next I'd check all the connections assuming you do have power to the gauges. Ground wires, sender wires, everything. An ohmmeter come in real handy for checking continuity too. It could easily be a bad ground connection anywhere as they all ultimately end up at the engine end.
I would resort to rewiring only as a last resort as it's likely a basic problem that can be traced down and fairly easily corrected.

[Aluminum Squirt]

Unless you have the Victor already or its a good deal, I'd lean a little towards something a little more lake/recreational boat friendly like a performer or a Torker at most. You may loose a little bottom end with the Victor. It's certainly a good manifold but if you are going to run modest RPM's (<5500), I'd look for something designed for your torque/HP curve to keep it a little more drivable, tunable, and skiable-Aluminum Squirt

[shaun]

if it where me i would rip it all out and re-wire it all but i'm the type of guy who hates bad/old wiring... might have somthing to do with my VW bug catching on fire while i was at a gas station because the wire sheilding fell apart from old age.

[Heatseeker]

Hey Pony, where've you been hiding?
I have to agree with the above responses, check your connections, especially the grounds! I had a tach burn out(which Mike(Rexone) got replaced for me at a nominal charge)due to a loose ground. I was told by several people to check the grounds and I kept saying "no way, I was very careful when I wired it up". Famous last words! I found a loose ground at the terminal block from when I had done an igntion upgrade.
Get 'er done and come out to Tower Park next weekend. We'll look foward to seeing you there!!!

[PonyFiveO]

Thanks for the tips guys! I will check it out this weekend. I am hoping it will be easy to diagnose. As for the Victor, it was a SMOKIN good deal I got on it last year! So I figure it wouldnt hurt to give it a try since I already have it... or possibly trade someone for a BRAND NEW STEALTH may be a better idea? :)
Its great to here from you Heatseaker! I hope things are well. I didnt get to here about how the Viper venture went??
So how about how many jet sizes up going from over transom logs to headers? And what timming should be on a stock 460??
Thanks! :)

[kachina_labala]

You can never have enough grounding! I am quite sure that you will find loose or corroded ground terminals. Usually in most cases there will be a large neutral wire that will come from the rear of the boat to the front and land on some sort of terminal strip. start with both ends of that wire. Usually the battery grounds to the block and then the negitives are tapped from somewhere else on the block. It is a much better set up to run an additonal wire from the battery to the negitive termination point and also have a wire to the block. Where is the location of your fuel tank? If its in the front I would suspect it to get its earth under the dash (look for the problem there) but if its in the rear I would expect it to be a seperate neutral wire. If its in the back, because of the seperate wire, I would chech the grounding back there.