Stock Depth Finder Not Working?

[2007 Outback V]

Ok, well the depth finder works at times, then reads nothing but dashes at other times? What gives? So weird, I look at it and it is reading depths and working just fine, then I look a few minutes later and nothing, a few more minutes later its working. Seems to be random. Any ideas?

Thanks

[mmandley]

Is the puck in the V drive lose? Other wise only 1 of two things are going bad. Puck or the gauge lol.

I actually have the stock gauge out of mine but i was never able to get the puck out.

The wire from the puck to the gauge is a solid harness no connectors 3 wires. A power ground and signal. Let me know if you want me to send you my gauge.

I know last year my stock gauge would goto - - - a lot when i was in deep water, or really shallow water. Deep water is prolly over 200ft and shallow water it has something to do with turbulence of the boat. The puck has to see smooth water to bounce the signal off the bottom of the lake or river.

Id look at the puck first and see if its loose or needed to be reglued in. Next you check the gauge make sure the bracket behind its tight, there is a couple screws on it but i cant recal of they are just bracket screws or holding a ground of some sort.

[cab13367]

Ok, well the depth finder works at times, then reads nothing but dashes at other times? What gives? So weird, I look at it and it is reading depths and working just fine, then I look a few minutes later and nothing, a few more minutes later its working. Seems to be random. Any ideas?

Thanks

This only happens to me when I go to this one lake that is deep. Like mandley says, the gauge has a limit (I think it's 199') and anything deeper, it will display "---".

Al

[2007 Outback V]

I was in a lake that only gets to about 40 ft. I did bump the puck while I was doing my ballast install upgrade. It was not a hard bump, but the glue broke lose. At the time I didn't know what it was, lol. I glued it back down with some marine silicone. I'll check for anything lose by the gauge. Does the puck need to be facing a certain way or anything?

[mmandley]

The puck needs to be out of turbulence. As long as you cleaned the surface and placed it back in the same location should be fine. Also im not sure what type of glue or epoxy you need to use. I saw some guys last year with puck issues and they used an epoxy and said make sure there's no air bubbles.

[jmb]

Mine did tha on my 05' Outback and it was a loose ground. Dealer told me a lot of them were doing this

[SEARK]

Ok, well the depth finder works at times, then reads nothing but dashes at other times? What gives? So weird, I look at it and it is reading depths and working just fine, then I look a few minutes later and nothing, a few more minutes later its working. Seems to be random. Any ideas?

Thanks

Mines done that from day one. Seems to be worse now than in the beginning. Only works occasionally and have either --- or a really off reading (may read 175 feet and the deepest part of our lake is only about 30). It will also just start jumping around to different depths at random. Good thing I know my lake.

[2007 Outback V]

The puck needs to be out of turbulence. As long as you cleaned the surface and placed it back in the same location should be fine. Also im not sure what type of glue or epoxy you need to use. I saw some guys last year with puck issues and they used an epoxy and said make sure there's no air bubbles.

I put the puck back in the same location with some marine silicone. I don't think there are any air bubbles? I did move the puck around a little and pulled it off the bottom of boat of few times to make sure I had silicone everywhere and a tackier surface. I didn't want the thing to break loose agian, LOL. Like I said it broke loose pretty easy, just bumped it.

[2007 Outback V]

Mine did tha on my 05' Outback and it was a loose ground. Dealer told me a lot of them were doing this

By chance do you know where the ground wire for the puck is? All I see is one wire going under the floor boards?

[mmandley]

By chance do you know where the ground wire for the puck is? All I see is one wire going under the floor boards?

The wire you should see is a thick black wire with white typing on it. If you carefully cut this open it has a Blue, Black, and bare metal line in it. I seriously doubt the wire under the floor is the issue. I would look at the dash and you will see all the wires. At the dash location is an additional Red and Black power line spliced to the boats power harness.

[2007 Outback V]

The wire you should see is a thick black wire with white typing on it. If you carefully cut this open it has a Blue, Black, and bare metal line in it. I seriously doubt the wire under the floor is the issue. I would look at the dash and you will see all the wires. At the dash location is an additional Red and Black power line spliced to the boats power harness.

Yup I took a good long hard look at the wires on the back of the depth finder. Everything looks to be solid. Black, blue, and a bare wire. I'm stuck?? Only thing I can think of is to play with the wires a little next time I have the boat on the water and see if that makes it start/stop working?

[mmandley]

Yup I took a good long hard look at the wires on the back of the depth finder. Everything looks to be solid. Black, blue, and a bare wire. I'm stuck?? Only thing I can think of is to play with the wires a little next time I have the boat on the water and see if that makes it start/stop working?

If you can strip part of the wire back, Ohm it with a meter. Make sure it doesn't have a break in some spot. I still have the stock gauge but i never was able to get my puck out =(

[Aquaholic]

Has anyone found a broken wire or had a bad gauge? I wonder out of all that have had problems, what the fix was other than money LOL. I get frustated with this topic because there is no clear solution ever posted. I just dont want to take the boat to the dealer but because they just throw parts at it till it's fixed and they never elaborate as to what was wrong or what they found.

oh well