In an effort to ensure I maintain my new outboard motor, I thought it’d be a good idea to add a digital hour-meter to the motor for tracking engine hours. This will certainly help remind me when scheduled maintenance intervals have been reached. I keep a spreadsheet that logs all engine hours, but I figured this would be a good method to see at-a-glance the engine hours every time I start it.

Installation was a breeze; simply wrapped the pick-up wire around the spark plug wire a five times and then secured it. I used industrial Velcro to mount the digital display at the front of the motor inside the cowling. I’ll see this every time I start the motor since I check the engine oil before each use.

As I mentioned, I have been tracking engine hours with a spreadsheet, so I know I already have two hours on this motor prior to installing the hour meter. I guess that’s just a figure I’ll have to remember to add and keep in mind when I look at the display. I ran it for a few minutes [actually 0.3 hours…about 18 minutes] to ensure the hour meter worked. While the motor is running it’s easy to see whether time is being logged. The little icon to the left of the hour readout blinks when it’s receiving a signal from the spark plug that the engine is running.

Pick-up wire wrapped around spark plug wire.

Pick-up wire wrapped around spark plug wire.

Installed hour meter

Installed hour meter under cowling at front of motor.

Hour meter

Hour meter