Well actually it did take one reading for a brief moment. I checked out the transducer in my boat and it looked fine as far as I could tell. I was thinking about replacing it especially at 58 bucks or so. Are there any other tests I can do to make sure the transducer is the culprit?

does the display seem to have power? Mine quit working and found a blown inline fuse. Replaced that and seems to be working ok.

Check to see if the x-ducer has come unseated. If there is air under it you may get no reading. Put enough water in the bilge to submerse the x-ducer and see if you get a reading. If so you would need to remove and re-stick it with no air pockets.

Unsane, I had a similar problem with mine. Almost always read zero. Sometimes it would work for a short time, then it would hunt up and down. Found out the transducer puck had come loose from the hull even though it looked like it was still epoxied down. If this is the case with yours I think you can reuse it. Hope this helps.
Dave

Yes unit on dash has power, it did read once for a brief second. I did check the transducer and it appeared to be seated. I'll take another closer look at it and just restick it. Thanks guys!

If you have to restick it... make sure that the location (and puck) are clean and then use SLOW setting epoxy... like a half hour or longer... air bubbles in regular fast set epoxy will stay in the epoxy and mess with your puck.

Good luck.

I have one reading 20 some feet when I'm in 3ft of water... stirring mud. It looks ancient and came w/the boat and will be replaced eventually, but I'd like to figure it out for now. Any ideas?

Box on top right dash... don't remember the brand, it's all tarped up now. Puck in bildge.

one good test would be to get the boat on plain-go as fast as you can towards the beach-when the boat stops -look at the guage-if it reads 0 its working ok.make sure it reads 0 when the boat stops or you may have to recalibrate it alittle

Nice.

Thanks Mr Mercruiser. I see how you got your name. Most helpful.
Sometimes you can over look the obvious, that's what makes this tech forum so helpful. You don't get all the bs here like some other forums.