WakeWorld - MasterCraft gauges dead

This is my experience with my 2008 X-2 with the video gauge cluster. this is similar to other MC and perhaps other brands with video gauges.

My gauges went dead on me. They started to fail, then worked when the boat warmed up, then completely failed. Aside from the lack of information, it was annoying not to have Zero Off control the speed (I added ZO and had to swap out the engine computer). Perfect Pass also failed to work under this condition.

Last season the depth sounder stopped working. This is not a big deal to me as I am on a engineered private lake where all depths are known. So, I just ignored it. Then the water temperature went out. Again, not a big deal so I ignored it. The starboard hard ballast tank then disappeared from the video gauge. Again, not a big deal, so I ignored it. Then the gauges, especially the tachometer started operating intermittently. Then it became a big deal.

I thought it sounded like a bad ground or bad connection. I went throughout the boat and took apart every plug and worked dielectric grease into each connection - looking for signs of corrosion. That took a couple of hours and some disassembly of the kick panel forward of the helm. I then went through and renewed each ground and power contact within the boat. That took about 3-hours. No change or improvement.

I then swapped out the Medallion gauge computer under the helm. No change.

I then bought a new relay of each type used on the boat and replaced one at a time. No change.

Frustrated and hoping for something of a win for the day, I unplugged the transducer and plugged in a new one. Everything suddenly worked. I unplugged the transducer, and still everything worked. Plugging the old one back in recreated the entire failure sequence. The transducer failure was the source of all of my gauge issues.

For future diagnosis, if you have similar symptoms, unplug the transducer and see if that does not clear up the issue. If so, the transducer is a bit pricey, but much less than a new computer.

After the transducer replacement, I reset the video gauge back to factory settings and everything works normally. A transducer swap can be performed in the water if you are quick. There is a flapper to seal up most of the water coming aboard. I hauled the boat out and less than a couple of minutes later re-launched. Use dielectric grease on the new transducer to make it quick and seal up without damaging the O-ring.

I have a lot of time and effort in figuring this out. Hopefully, this write up will save some a lot of time and money. As this seems to be a fairly common issue, this may be a good post to make sticky somewhere.