I ran into several issues with the VP MDI boxes beyond the boxes themselves:
-Reluctance by the local VP certified distributor
service tech to believe that any fault lay with VP. Ie, the boat/engine
installation (FP), system
wiring, etc caused the problem after failure of a new, out of the box unit they supplied failed in under 5 hours. It was not the part number I discuss later.
-Reluctance to believe that there was a problem with the new unit itself when the faults could NOT be repeated. I appreciate the difficulties of an intermittent problem but to treat it as fictitious was in a word, wrong. I finally independently duplicated the problem and videoed him the result.
-Reluctance to listen to the owner’s observations regarding the entire SNAFU including the probable cause based on the similarity to
events generously detailed in these posts and elsewhere on the web.
I, too, reached out to Nordkyn and another in
England who were emphatic that the ONLY Part number I should accept was 23231607. 23195776 is the operable part while 23231607 is a kit that contains 23195776 and a small piece of paper. The VP blue OEM box is labeled with a bar code that includes the part number BUT I received a box with the correct part number on the box and a different part number on the MDI (it was the predecessor number and the tech said it was from VP and therefore was correct and just a “labeling” thing). I refused to accept it, demanding that the right part number be on the part itself.
Now, I’m going to jinx my setup by saying that I have had no issues since installing 23195776.
Somewhere in the boat
manuals, I have directions for how to Hotwire (bypass) the MDI. The only downside is that it takes the sensors off line, including the alarms. It is simple to do. We travel to pretty
remote locations in NW North America, locations with no outside
communications and locations that preclude operating sans engines.
Hope this helps a little.
Cheers, Rufduck