Hi Mark,
Welcome to the dead
Volvo hour meter club. Ours are also dead, but once in a while they kick back in. Sometimes they just display garbage. It isn't related to the external
regulator because ours are stock alternators and others on other makes of boats have this problem also. I have tried
cleaning all
electrical contacts, checking wires for impedance, etc, to no avail. It is a
Volvo design problem that can be fixed only with $$$ by
buying new tachs. And even then, you will run into the problem again down the road, because Volvo has not redesigned them.
However, the only non-esthetic purpose of the meters is to keep track of the
engine hours over longish periods of time for
maintenance reasons. So why not simply install dedicated hour meters across the
alternator outputs and leave them in the engine compartment? I got a nice, small digital hour meter at Graingers for $25 that I use to
monitor the reefer run times. When we get back to the States, I plan to install these on our engines.
Hope you are enjoying your
boat,
Mark