ALarm sensor is driving us crazy
 

We have had our 2001 Shabah Z222 since March of this year. Initially, when we heard the alarm (really annoying beeps) go off, we filled up the gear lube oil, and we understand that it can still go off if the oil is sloshing around a bit.

Alarm still went off.

SO...we took it to a service station, they changed all the oil (regular and lube) and put new seals on the lube oil. They took it out and as luck would have it, they could not get the alarm to sound.
They even checked their manual, looked at everything that should trigger the alarm, and found nothing wrong. This is where it gets frustrating.

ALARM STILL GOES OFF-for no apparent reason. It has gotten progressively worse, now going off about 40% of the time we are in the thing.

Last weekend, we had it out with a group of friends and my husband and I literally wanted to abandon ship! Iit sounds like some haphazard morse code. Long beeps, short beeps, nothing predicatable. My husband noticed that it seems to sound off more when he is at 3000rpms, which is prime crusing speed for that model (at leats for us).

Does anyone have any experience with this type of thing? I was hoping we could just chalk it up to a screwball snesor and pull the fuse, but my husband is afraid that it could affect any other instruments connected to it.

Coincidentally, our spedometer went out on us about a month ago, don't know if that could be related. We are not planning to fix that, as I hear it is costly and our GPS will tell us our speed.

We are so sad and frustrated that we only have 3 weekends left this season and we can't really enjoy the boat with that sound turning us into raving lunatics.


Any advice would be helpful, yes we plan to have it looked at again, but we live hours away and literally can't take it back to the shop until we have it winterized...and they will not be able to drive (and test it) at that point.

Re: ALarm sensor is driving us crazy
 

Sounds a bit like my issue; except mine is a consistent beep.

http://www.mariahownersclub.com/foru...own-cause.html

I have yet to find the cause myself; lucky for me, I work nights, so I have a few more trips than you do ;)

Re: ALarm sensor is driving us crazy
 

My alarm problem is very similar to MissouriBoater79. It beeps in a couple of times, sometimes as long as 3 to 4 seconds, and then turns off. I am monitoring by gauges and oil pressure is around 60 psi, water temp is normal, cruising speed of around 3000-3500 rpms, and drive oil is full (just had oil change and drive oil change). Is there some type of overheating that would not show on the water temp gauge?

Re: ALarm sensor is driving us crazy
 

I found out from Mercruiser that the beeping (2 beeps per 60 seconds) is similar to the check engine light on a car.

The beeps should never be anything other than a stable 2 beeps per 60 seconds if it's anything thrown by the ECM, everything else is a fault or short somewhere caused by either loose wires, corrosion, rubbed off insulation, or bad grounding.


I took my boat into the shop and had them read the codes, I had a knock sensor code and an old overtemp code from when my raw water pump went out.

The knock sensor code can be caused by bad fuel or fuel of too high of octane depending on atmospheric conditions.
Go figure for me, the boat sat for 2 years with a full tank of fuel, and has always run 92 octane where it's rated for 87 octane...

Cleared the codes, dumped the fuel tank... and time to test it out tomorrow!


For you guys, I would suggest checking your wiring harness and reseating every connection in line with the alarm sensor (usually behind the throttle control), quicksilver has the wiring and color codes easily findable on google (from the shop manual)
Look for corroded connectors and anything of the sort.

I discovered on my boat, that the tan/blue wire from the alarm to my exhaust switch behind the dash, will cause a beep if the wire touches ground (discovered accidentally with a test light), so that would be the first wire I would check for corrosion, water, or rubbed insulation.

Also, watch your gauges closely, and run a test with your gear oil float, water temp and pressure sensor unhooked to rule out commonly failed sensors. All other sensors are controlled by the ECM, so you would have to read the codes with a scan tool (your local shop should be able to do this)


Best of luck

Re: ALarm sensor is driving us crazy
 

Thanks, Driew.

We took it to the shop again this weekend, they did check each sensor (gear oil, temp and pressure), and were able to rule out all three as a possible cause. My husband managed to cover the speaker that the sound comes from so that he will not lose his mind while we try to get it fixed.

It is definetly not 2 beeps per 60 sceonds, it is very erratic, so we are very confident it is a short or corroded wire as you have suggested. Again, I appreciate all the help from everyone!

Re: ALarm sensor is driving us crazy
 

The PO of our boat had simply unplugged the alarm sounder. I don't know why, because, when I plugged it back in, everything seemed fine. (I'd call him and ask, except The Admiral tells me that when she called him to ask if he still had the owner's manual or anything else still around, he seemed reluctant to talk about the boat.)

By the sounds of it, my guess would be failing/failed sensor. I'd locate the connection to each sensor (from imperfect memory: I believe they'll be tan wires with a blue stripe), unplug and secure in such a manner where it cannot short to ground, and see which one's causing the problem. If it isn't one of the sensors, my next guess would be the alarm sounder, itself.

Jim