boatfixer or Marine man

[gizmoguy]

Or anybody else. My tachometer quit working. so i did some searching and found out about the voltage regulator may be at fault. I checked them and sure enough one of them is bad. I can see a big black spot through the semi clear potting over the PCB. The potting is also cracked and the black stuff is filling the crack. Its a 1995 175 efi mercury and it has 2 voltage regulators. Do I need to replace both or just the bad one? Is the sierra regulator as good or better than the OEM? It has a lifetime warr and less $. I don't have time to order one as I am leaving to fish the Wave Wacker next week.

[marine_man]

If the other one tested good, then I don't see any reason to replace it.

For the money it's tough to beat the Sierra price... especially given the lifetime warranty.

marine_man

[gizmoguy]

Thanks for the reply. How do you test the other one? The one that is bad looks real bad. Does it use both or is there another seperate regulated charging system that's not being used?

[boatfixer]

Using an ohmmeter, connect the negative lead to the base of the rectifier and connect the positive lead to the other wires (yellows, and red) one at time--You should get continuity. Then reverse the leads, (positive to ground and neg to wires)----You should NOT get continuity.