HOW TO FIX A SHORTED TAPS CONTROL...
First off let me say thanks so much for everyone making this board such a great resource, hats off to Tige, the moderators, and all the members. As a first time Wakeboard Boat owner, this board has helped make me feel very informed and allot more comfortable with my boat and boating in general. So, thought I would try to help a little as a way of saying thanks to everyone being so patient and helpful...
Let me say I am NOT a boat mechanic, Just a little bit handy and patient, so please don't attempt this if you aren't in the same mind set! I don't confess for this to be perfect, I am taking this completely from memory so I may miss something. You need to use some common sense to tweak this for your particular boat, so don't hold me responsible if you dork something up! My Tige is a 2002 21i with the older Bennett hydraulic wake plate, but this should be the same for all boats with TAPS and TAPS2. This is a about a 3 out of 5 skill level job and will probably take 2 hours to complete. If you are uncomfortable with pulling wire, soldering wires, electrical work or any of this, stop now and bring your Tige to the dealer! But a daring soul will find it's not hard and may save you some $$$!
So with out a further interruption...
HOW TO FIX A SHORTED TAPS CONTROL...
You need to do a little investigation to determine if indeed this is your problem first. The short normally occurs either in the handle itself near the finger lock out control or in the shifter pivot point. In looking closely at the taps setup it looks to me to be a custom modified Teleflex control handle, and some of the custom modifications aren't perfect, and I have a feeling this will be an Achilles heel for Tiges for a while. But hey, it is worth a little hassle for the awesome ability to dial in your wake! Sometimes the problem maybe in the connection at taps or the taps pump itself, but if the pump doesn't run chances are you need to do this...
You have to remove the entire side vinyl's just next to the drivers seat (on a 2002 21i it's two, with 7 nuts) there are nuts hidden in back of the covers, be patient and make sure up remove all of them and they will come out easily. Next you must remove the shift panel from the side, (four screws) You probably could do this without removing it, but it makes it way easier. Look in the neutral button and you will find a small phillips screw remove it, then remove the neutral button. In the bottom of the shift handle there is a set screw going straight up from the bottom into the handle, back it off a couple of turns and then you can remove the entire shift handle and the chrome lock out ring. It should pull out easily, don't pry it, if it doesn't you need to back the set screw out more. You are going to be working with electrical so disconnect the negative (black) battery terminal.
Here is where you will find out where the short is...
Carefully pull a small amount of wire from the shifter control, you will probably see broken frayed/chaffed wires if not look in the handle itself, especially under the lock finger control. Cut the wire close to the TAPS electronic control, to find this follow the cord from the shifter to under the dash...make sure to cut it off but leave the connections intact with a small amount of colored wire left, you'll see why later...
Carefully pry out the TAPS switch, this is a really good quality switch and even though it feels a little mushy it's probably fine, if you have a test light test or an ohm meter test it, otherwise I'll bet you a nickel it's fine. Now you will see the switch connections, snip of the wires and leave some of the colored insulation in place, you'll see why later...
You may want to splice on to the old wire, but I don' t recommend it. I removed all of it then went on a wild goose chase trying to find the correct 22 gauge, jacketed 3 conductor wire... West Marine...No, Radio Shack...No, Home depot... No, Lowes...No, Orchard supply...No, Finally got lucky and found something like it at Ace hardware, but wait there is a catch... It is 24 gauge jacketed 4 conductor, one of the wires had to be removed, actually it think this is advantageous because now there is room for the wire to move inside the jacket rather than be squashed in the jacket and wear-out...or so I hope. The gauge of the wire doesn't really matter, no current is fed through it, it just needs to fit in the groove in the shift handle, but it is important that it is STRANDED, solid core wont hold up at all. What I found was telephone wire, but again make sure it's stranded, in other words one wire should be made of several copper wires rather than one solid copper wire. Take the entire shift handle with you to make sure the wire will fit in the groove the old wire came from. Don't worry if the colors don't match, the original should be black, white and red, if they match great if they don't, that's ok. Buy more than enough wire, After my wild goose chase I just bought an entire box, so now I probably have enough to fix it 100 times over, but it is useful for lots of other things as well, just make sure you have more than you pulled out! I wish I could have found some premium quality wire but after hunting and hunting had to take what I could get. In hindsight I wish I would have gone to an electrical supplier for some top quality wire, but this repair has been going strong for the last month so next go round I will look more.
Reassembly...
So you have finally found the correct wire, now it's time to put it all back together, here is what I suggest. Running the wire through the handle can be a bit tough, you may need to do some further disassembly of the shift handle, there is a snap ring on the back of the chrome lock out ring, and then you can take out the lock out itself, this just gives you more access to the groove the wire lays in. Look carefully for any sharp edges or rough tooling marks in the handle, file them down if you find them, these are custom made and mine had some pretty rough spots. To help getting the wire into the handle, completely soak it in silicone spray, or even better silicone grease, or whatever lube is compatible with the wire. I think this is a good Idea because later, when its in use, it will allow the wire slide around rather than stick and chafe, and hopefully allow this repair to last longer. I even sprayed silicone inside the wire jacket, just make sure what ever spray lube you use is compatible with the wire. Take your time and be sure to feed the wire into the handle and the shifter very carefully to not damage it. don't worry about the electrical connections yet, just carefully run the wire into the shift lever then up to the dash near where you snipped off the wire earlier. Make sure you have enough to reach the TAPS control then snip it off, crimp on 3 female spade terminals. Carefully reassemble everything except for the vinyl's. Now check your wiring, with a test light or an ohm meter, make sure all the connections are intact, and that none are grounding out. If so take it apart again and you'll probably find a pinched wire some where (happened to me) My guess is that you didn't find the exact same black, red and white wire that was in the original, here is what you do. In my case I had telephone wire which is, yellow, green, red and black. I removed the green wire so now all I had was red, black and yellow. Carefully going one at a time, replace each connection. Try to use a color as close to the one your replacing, so in my case I went red to red, black to black, and then white to yellow. You cant go wrong as long as you go one at a time, meaning, unsolder the old white wire from the switch, resolder new yellow on to switch. Remove old white wire spade connector from TAPS control, replace new yellow wire spade connector into TAPS control. And Once you have all the connections made reattach the battery ground lead and TAPS should be working great!
This whole project took a couple of days to fix, but this was because I couldn't find the replacement wire, but now that I have found it I think I could do this job in a little over and hour...
GOOD LUCK!
Let me say I am NOT a boat mechanic, Just a little bit handy and patient, so please don't attempt this if you aren't in the same mind set! I don't confess for this to be perfect, I am taking this completely from memory so I may miss something. You need to use some common sense to tweak this for your particular boat, so don't hold me responsible if you dork something up! My Tige is a 2002 21i with the older Bennett hydraulic wake plate, but this should be the same for all boats with TAPS and TAPS2. This is a about a 3 out of 5 skill level job and will probably take 2 hours to complete. If you are uncomfortable with pulling wire, soldering wires, electrical work or any of this, stop now and bring your Tige to the dealer! But a daring soul will find it's not hard and may save you some $$$!
So with out a further interruption...
HOW TO FIX A SHORTED TAPS CONTROL...
You need to do a little investigation to determine if indeed this is your problem first. The short normally occurs either in the handle itself near the finger lock out control or in the shifter pivot point. In looking closely at the taps setup it looks to me to be a custom modified Teleflex control handle, and some of the custom modifications aren't perfect, and I have a feeling this will be an Achilles heel for Tiges for a while. But hey, it is worth a little hassle for the awesome ability to dial in your wake! Sometimes the problem maybe in the connection at taps or the taps pump itself, but if the pump doesn't run chances are you need to do this...
You have to remove the entire side vinyl's just next to the drivers seat (on a 2002 21i it's two, with 7 nuts) there are nuts hidden in back of the covers, be patient and make sure up remove all of them and they will come out easily. Next you must remove the shift panel from the side, (four screws) You probably could do this without removing it, but it makes it way easier. Look in the neutral button and you will find a small phillips screw remove it, then remove the neutral button. In the bottom of the shift handle there is a set screw going straight up from the bottom into the handle, back it off a couple of turns and then you can remove the entire shift handle and the chrome lock out ring. It should pull out easily, don't pry it, if it doesn't you need to back the set screw out more. You are going to be working with electrical so disconnect the negative (black) battery terminal.
Here is where you will find out where the short is...
Carefully pull a small amount of wire from the shifter control, you will probably see broken frayed/chaffed wires if not look in the handle itself, especially under the lock finger control. Cut the wire close to the TAPS electronic control, to find this follow the cord from the shifter to under the dash...make sure to cut it off but leave the connections intact with a small amount of colored wire left, you'll see why later...
Carefully pry out the TAPS switch, this is a really good quality switch and even though it feels a little mushy it's probably fine, if you have a test light test or an ohm meter test it, otherwise I'll bet you a nickel it's fine. Now you will see the switch connections, snip of the wires and leave some of the colored insulation in place, you'll see why later...
You may want to splice on to the old wire, but I don' t recommend it. I removed all of it then went on a wild goose chase trying to find the correct 22 gauge, jacketed 3 conductor wire... West Marine...No, Radio Shack...No, Home depot... No, Lowes...No, Orchard supply...No, Finally got lucky and found something like it at Ace hardware, but wait there is a catch... It is 24 gauge jacketed 4 conductor, one of the wires had to be removed, actually it think this is advantageous because now there is room for the wire to move inside the jacket rather than be squashed in the jacket and wear-out...or so I hope. The gauge of the wire doesn't really matter, no current is fed through it, it just needs to fit in the groove in the shift handle, but it is important that it is STRANDED, solid core wont hold up at all. What I found was telephone wire, but again make sure it's stranded, in other words one wire should be made of several copper wires rather than one solid copper wire. Take the entire shift handle with you to make sure the wire will fit in the groove the old wire came from. Don't worry if the colors don't match, the original should be black, white and red, if they match great if they don't, that's ok. Buy more than enough wire, After my wild goose chase I just bought an entire box, so now I probably have enough to fix it 100 times over, but it is useful for lots of other things as well, just make sure you have more than you pulled out! I wish I could have found some premium quality wire but after hunting and hunting had to take what I could get. In hindsight I wish I would have gone to an electrical supplier for some top quality wire, but this repair has been going strong for the last month so next go round I will look more.
Reassembly...
So you have finally found the correct wire, now it's time to put it all back together, here is what I suggest. Running the wire through the handle can be a bit tough, you may need to do some further disassembly of the shift handle, there is a snap ring on the back of the chrome lock out ring, and then you can take out the lock out itself, this just gives you more access to the groove the wire lays in. Look carefully for any sharp edges or rough tooling marks in the handle, file them down if you find them, these are custom made and mine had some pretty rough spots. To help getting the wire into the handle, completely soak it in silicone spray, or even better silicone grease, or whatever lube is compatible with the wire. I think this is a good Idea because later, when its in use, it will allow the wire slide around rather than stick and chafe, and hopefully allow this repair to last longer. I even sprayed silicone inside the wire jacket, just make sure what ever spray lube you use is compatible with the wire. Take your time and be sure to feed the wire into the handle and the shifter very carefully to not damage it. don't worry about the electrical connections yet, just carefully run the wire into the shift lever then up to the dash near where you snipped off the wire earlier. Make sure you have enough to reach the TAPS control then snip it off, crimp on 3 female spade terminals. Carefully reassemble everything except for the vinyl's. Now check your wiring, with a test light or an ohm meter, make sure all the connections are intact, and that none are grounding out. If so take it apart again and you'll probably find a pinched wire some where (happened to me) My guess is that you didn't find the exact same black, red and white wire that was in the original, here is what you do. In my case I had telephone wire which is, yellow, green, red and black. I removed the green wire so now all I had was red, black and yellow. Carefully going one at a time, replace each connection. Try to use a color as close to the one your replacing, so in my case I went red to red, black to black, and then white to yellow. You cant go wrong as long as you go one at a time, meaning, unsolder the old white wire from the switch, resolder new yellow on to switch. Remove old white wire spade connector from TAPS control, replace new yellow wire spade connector into TAPS control. And Once you have all the connections made reattach the battery ground lead and TAPS should be working great!
This whole project took a couple of days to fix, but this was because I couldn't find the replacement wire, but now that I have found it I think I could do this job in a little over and hour...
GOOD LUCK!
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