Paul, you are certainly an optimist! My thought would have been that the hour meter shows when the tachometer cable broke or was disconnected.
I don't know if it was discussed on this formum in the past sometime, but those Chris Craft tachometers are all mechanical -- that is, there is no clock in them. So the "hours" are not really hours -- the "hour" display is actually an odometer which counts revolutions. I assume Chris Craft calibrated it so each extra "hour" corresponds to about the number of revolutions the engine turns in an hour at slow cruise. It is not really a bad system -- the "hours" would be higher than real hours if you consistantly ran the boat faster than average (and lower if you ran the boat slower than average). Assuming that running at higher RPM puts more wear on the engine and oil in a shorter time, the "hours" shown on the tach would be a pretty good indicator of when service is needed.
Hey, thanks for posting us as picture of the day again! Cool.
Best wishes, Curt...
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1967 fiberglass 38' Chris Craft Commander Sportfisher with twin 427 CID 300 HP engines.
