17' Alumaweld Stryker updates

[barrelrolled]

This spring the wife and I moved to Juneau, Alaska from Denver, Colorado for work. In Colorado we had a jeep on 35's and went 4 wheeling just about every weekend. There's 0 4 wheeling in Juneau without putting the jeep on a ferry for 4 hours to get to the trails. The local joke is the key to tolerating life in Juneau is buying a boat and getting out on the ocean. Before we moved to Juneau neither the wife or I had any boating experience and had very minimal small lake fishing experience. Might as well make a thread to watch me throw dollars into the ocean and hopefully not go for an unintentional swim.

The wife and I had a couple requirements: under $20k, aluminum for the durability/ beaching/ we know we are going to hit something, must have a top and windshield since all it does here is rain and is usually 60 degrees or colder, newer motor, and not a complete project/ ready to hit the water. There just aren't many boats for sale here under $20k that aren't clapped out fiberglass piles and decent aluminum boats under $20k go in a hurry. Buying from out of the area would have involved a couple grand in travel/ shipping and with covid traveling to Seattle or Anchorage and trying to ship a boat back wasn't in the cards.

After searching craigslist for a while a 17' 1998 alumaweld stryker with a 2014 60hp Evinrude etec with 180 hours, 6hp Suzuki with 50 hours, canvas top enclosure, windshield, 5" Lowrance HDI GPS/ fish finer, trailer, manual down riggers, just about everything besides life jackets to be legal, and a newer not completely hack but probably flat rate wiring/ rigging job popped up for $14,500. $13,500 and a sea trial later and it was ours. The previous owner took decent care of it and all the work was done by a local shop with a decent reputation.

Here's the boat sitting in the PO's yard

Craigslist ad for the boat

Actually floating at the dock on the sea trial

The thought is this is a starter boat, use it for a couple years and decide if we want to keep it long term or move on to something else. Learn boating, learn how to fish, get out on the water, and learn what we want/ need in a boat. I'm not 100% sold on the etec but so far so good, the boat is a solid 20mph boat at 4,600rpm and according to the previous owner 3gph at 4,600rpm. It's not perfect but is plenty usable, the floor is getting close to needed replacement, the rigging/ wiring needs some clean up, and it has the typical 22 year old boat wear.

I will be copying some of the thread over from a non boating forum so some of this work has all ready happened. We bought the boat July 28th and got out a couple times. I work out at a remote mine camp and am home for a couple weeks at a time and then at work for a couple weeks/ months at a time. I'm headed out to work in the next couple days and will be back mid September.

We are new to this boating thing so you if you see me making any major mistakes or have some pointers I'm all ears.

 

[barrelrolled]

We went on a sea trial with the PO before exchanging funds, he insisted on it and that gave me a little confidence he wasn't selling us a complete pile. After the sea trial we paid him for it, hooked it up, and headed right back to the marina for it's first voyage. We enjoyed the trip and tried fishing with 0 luck. One of the things we realized was the boat was a mess when we were on the water, it came with a lot of extra stuff from the PO. We had junk everywhere and nothing had a place. It was also a mess unpacking and things were everywhere. With the jeep we could be ready to go 4 wheeling in 10 minutes and unpacked in about the same. It had a dedicated set of tools/ parts so we didn't have to pack that stuff every time. Our neighborhood is pretty decent but leaving a bunch of boat stuff out overnight there's the possibility of things disappearing so we like to put the easily stolen things in the garage.

Short term plans
-Give everything a good clean and throw out a bunch of junk from the PO
-Find a place for everything, work on mounting things so they have a places they live
-Pick up a set of dedicated boat tools and acquire basic spare parts
-Work on organizing our stuff so we can load/ unload the boat quickly and it's not a floating disaster
-Clean up the rigging/ wiring a little bit at a time
-Get the wiper to work a little more efficiently
-USB outlet for charging phones
-Remove old humming bird fish finder/ GPS that might work but was easier to leave in than remove and mount a 7" Lowrance Elite Ti2 left over from desert racing to go along with the 5" Lowrance currently on the boat
-Link the Etec to the 7" Lowrance for more gauge information and accurate fuel consumption, build a NMEA2000 network, and put in the 1 point antenna left over from the desert racing.
-Link the VHF to 5" Lowrance via NMEA0183 of DSC
-Drains in the bow deck for green water

Long term plans
-Replace the rear flooring / open the can of worms to see what's under the floor
-Possibly a fish box
-New Seats with heat for the wife

Coming back from our first voyage

The Bird waiting to be evicted

Starting to discover the goodies left over form the previous owner and what to throw in the craigslist pile

 

[barrelrolled]

One of the things the PO mentioned was the boat had some rattles and he had things like a rag shoved behind the shifter and a rubber glove on the motor cables in the splashwell to keep them from rattling.

I discovered 1 of the shifter mounting bolts was too long, 30 seconds with the hackzall and 1 rattle was gone.

What else are you supposed to do on day 2 of boat ownership than buy $100 worth of stainless hardware and start drilling holes in the new boat?

I mounted some pico clamps under the rail in the back to give the kicker motor linkage and anchor light somewhere to live out of the way. Another thing that's no longer in the way and rattling.

I mounted some bungee cords at the cleats to give the dock lines somewhere to live besides a pile on the deck. Yes the dock lines were changed so they are coming out of the cleat the proper direction.

 

[Baylinerchuck]

That’s a great looking boat. Looking forward to your updates. Welcome to iBoats. :wave:

 

[barrelrolled]

The boat came with a questionable humming bird GPS/ fish finder the previous owner left in because it was easier to leave in than pull. I got it out and left the transducer in the loom since it will be easier to pull when we dive into the floor/ later on. I had a left over Lowrance Elite Ti2 from desert racing that needed a new home. I pulled the Navico chart out of the 5" Lowrance and put it in the 7" so the 5" is dedicated as a fish finder and the 7" for charts. This combo works awesome not having to squint at the 5" screen and also give us some redundancy in the event of electronics problems.

I had looked under the dash when I bought it but not all that closely. The boat has a switch panel with glass fuses, + and - bus bars, and has 2 other types of fuses and lots of extra wire under the dash along with a complete lack of grommets going through the dash. What ever was wired they just ran a wire directly to it and if it was too long they just looped up the wire, they also liked to wrap bundles of wire in electrical tape. I ended up rewiring both Lowrances with the same type of fuse holder, actually installing a grommet where the wires passed through the dash, and shortening the wires as much as possible. When I have some time I'm going to work on getting more things wired into the switch panel/ just clean up the wiring. Wires dangling, wires loose not attached to anything, and things like non heat shrunk connectors drive me insane. I work on cobbled together disasters for 12 hours a day, I don't want to deal with them on my days off.

The boat came with 3 Scotty adjustable rod holders and 2 fixed rod holders. There just wasn't a good spot to put a net or spare pole without it getting in the way. I added 2 more Scotty mounts and another adjustable rod holder to put the net and a spare pole up against the "cabin" area while still putting 2 rods in holders in "fishing mode".

We added some swinging cup holders and I added little pieces of vinyl tubing to cut down on rattles. The jury is out on if they will stay or get replaced, the wife isn't a fan so far. The dog has mastered knocking them off the dash on accident and they just don't work great so they will probably get replaced. You can see the wife has started to move in and fill up the dash with "essential stuff" that can live there till winter.

The boat came with a very old tiny fire extinguisher crammed under a seat. I upgraded to the next sized up and mounted it in the passenger foot area out of the way so it can live there full time.

 

[barrelrolled]

When we were 4 wheeling every weekend we had packing the jeep and leaving for the trip down to a science, the goal is the same with the boat.

I wanted some sort of waterproof boxes we could move around for ballast/ keep everything organized. Rigid makes this interlocking tool boxes with an O-ring seal that should work nicely. They fit behind the seats still in the enclosure or in between the front seats giving us some locations options for ballast. 1 of the shallow boxes got filled with tools and spare parts, a deeper box got filled with jackets/ a blanket for the wife/ clothes, and there's a clear lid shallow box for fishing junk/ tackle. We have another deep and shallow for food and more clothes for longer trips. So far they have worked out great, keep the boat organized, and things have stayed dry.

Top box set up with salmon gear, we might get a second for halibut gear

For the tool box box it got a set of really basic hand tools including a big hammer, 2 adjustable wrenches, a couple screw drivers, filter wrench for the fuel separator, tape measure that now lives on the dash for measuring fish, metric sockets, spark plug socket, ratchet/ extension/ wobble, channellocks, vise grips, needle nose pliers, side cutters, a jump pack, cheap multimeter, wiring pliers, magnet on a stick, utility knife, spare spark plugs, spare recor water separator filter and clear motor mounted fuel filter, fuel line and hose clamps, vacuum line, fuses, wiring connectors and wire, tefflon tape, electrical tape, duct tape, jb quick, zip ties, bailing wire, spare drain plug, a quart of etec oil, wd40, RTV, a hand full of nuts, bolts, and screws, and I'd like to pick up a spare thermostat. After our latest trip out we lost a down rigger ball and ripped the end off the cable so now there's 400' of down rigger cable, a spare clip, a couple cannon terminators for the cable and we'll have to find a home for a spare down rigger ball. If there's anything I should probably bring along that isn't in there let me know.

Tools ready to get loaded up

All loaded up

 

[barrelrolled]

Getting the our sea legs and learning how to handle the thing in semi rough seas is taking some getting used to.The second time taking it out it was raining and the seas were slightly rough. We couldn't see much, the windows were fogging up and having a wiper only on the driver's side is pretty unnerving for the passenger. Third time we towed the boat to the ramp in the rain, dried all the windows off and cleaned them up with some rainx brand windex at the ramp before heading out, that helped a ton. A second wiper is on the list of upgrades for the winter. The wiper really wasn't covering a ton of the windshield and the spot is was cleaning was blocked by electronics

Typical boating day in Southeast Alaska

At this point I had to scratch the itch and clean up the wiring under the dash/ clean up some of the rigging. Wires not connected to anything, wires running everywhere, and fuses is 4 spots were driving me crazy. I also decided to pull the trigger and link the Lowrance to the etec to try and get accurate fuel data. The fuel gauge is nowhere near accurate and good fuel data would be great peace of mind.

Here's the only before picture I have

First thing to fix was the wiper. It worked but didn't have park, was off the windshield for part of the cycle, and there was a wire just dangling out of the wiper motor taunting me under the dash. The wiper motor was wired to a on off/ toggle with a glass fuse inline and where ever you shut it off is where it stopped. I found a manual for a very similar wiper motor (pretty sure it's the same motor just in a different box) https://doc.jamestowndistributors.co...structions.pdf I had a on/ off/ on toggle lying around, 1 of the wires is the high speed, 1 is the low speed, and the 3rd is for park which is routed to the always hot +, I mounted it to the incoming power for the switch. Wahlah high and low speed and it parked, just off the windshield in the horizontal position. The wires got ran nicely with a bunch of zip ties, zip tie mounts, and the wire was routed to a ATC fuse at the + junction block (more on this later).







I discovered you could adjust the amount of rotation by moving the hole the arm inside the motor mounts to the gear and if you put it in a different slotted hole it would park vertically instead of horizontal. The arm it's self was adjustable. A couple trial and error tweaks and it now covers a lot more of the windshield, stays on the glass, and I had it park vertically instead of horizontal so crap didn't accumulate on the blade when it's in storage.


​​

More on cleaning up the wiring mess and understanding marine electronics to come

 

[barrelrolled]

It won't let me edit my last post

Here's the cleaned up wiper wiring

Here's the adjusted wiper position

I'm into the wiring now, no stopping till I've made it to the transom, do it once and be done is the goal

 

[barrelrolled]

The next thing was the electronics and learning about NMEA communication between electronics and the outboard. NMEA0183 is the older not as advanced communication system and NMEA2000 newer system. It turns out the VHF and 5" Lowrance Elite-5HDI are NMEA0183 capable and the Lowrance Elite-7Ti2 and 2014 60HP Etec are NMEA2000 capable.

Why would you want the VHF radio to talk to the GPS? The radio has the ability to broadcast your GPS position/ vessel information if you make a distress call and receive the positions of other vessels making distress calls through DSC (digital selective calling). I also needed to register for an MMSI (Mobile Marine Service Identity) with Boat US to have the ability to make DSC's/ transmit my info if I made a distress call. Both the GPS and VHF had bare wires just dangling out of them so this would terminate them and tie up some random loose wires. The VHF was hard wired with wires running through a hole without a grommet in the dash. I pulled on the VHF coax and the plug came right off, a quick check on google found it was supposed to be soldered together. I ended up drilling out the hole in the dash, putting in a grommet, soldering the VHF coax connector, wiring the VHF to a ATC fuse right next to the + junction block, and putting weather pack connectors on both the VHF power wires and NMEA wires so the radio can come out for the winter. I also entered some local FIPS so we can get weather alerts on the radio.

VHF Showing my position

In case anyone needs to connect a Uniden UM380 to a Lowrance Elite-5HDI here's the wire combo that worked for me, the wire colors in the Uniden the manual is not right and finding the Lowrance code wasn't easy

Lowrance Side VHF Side
Yellow Transmit + Yellow Receive +
Blue Transmit - Green Receive -
Orange Receive + White Transmit +
Green Receive - Brown Transmit -
Bare Shielded Ground Bare Shielded ground

Here's the now removable connections. I would have liked to use deutsch connectors but I didn't have any in my collection.

That ties up the NMEA0183 network, NMEA2000 network to follow

 

[barrelrolled]

When I started digging into electronics stuff I discovered the 7" Lowrance Elite Ti2 had the ability to display engine information/ act as a dash board. I found a fuel menu on the Lowrance and it and had a setting for trip fuel consumption/ had a fuel gauge on the dash. After some googling it sounded doable to make these features on the Lowrance work. I needed to build a NMEA2000 network which requires it's own power source. I had a NMEA starter kit along with a Point 1 antenna sitting in a box in the garage to start the NMEA network and decided to add the antenna because I had it. To tie the motor in I needed an Evinrude Etec to NMEA2000 cable doing that should give me the ability to get fuel consumption data on the Lowrance along with water temp, RPM, instant fuel economy, and throttle position/ % load. My etec has the basic tachometer gauge with idiot lights and nothing else so seeing this data will be great peace of mind. The 60hp etec does not send trim info out via NMEA and water pressure data requires another sensor which I didn't feel to the need to add. According to my searching it was debatable if I needed a fuel data manager for the NMEA network or not.

I ordered etec cable and fuel data manager off of Amazon to install once I get home in September. Once I had the wiring torn apart and realized I was going to go all the way to the transom I figured now would be the time to run the NMEA cable to the transom for the motor instead of diving back into the wiring loom heading to the back of the boat again in September. I called up the local Evinrude dealer, they had the cable on the shelf for $53 out the door, it was $90 from Amazon so I was able to finish that before I head back to work.



The gauge function on the Lowrance. With the $53 cable and an extension I had lying around it's working as it should and displays RPM, Speed over ground, Economy, Engine water temp, I believe it's showing alternator voltage but I need to verify it's accurate since it's showing 16 volts. It isn't showing fuel level (more on that in a bit). It also isn't displaying trim or water pressure since the etec doesn't supply that information and isn't showing water temp or depth because the 7" doesn't have a transducer connected. I've tried to remove the unneeded gauges from the screen but can't figure it out. I'm going to call Lowrance and figure out if there's a way.

The Fuel Screen

The Fuel Used Screen. I had called up Lowrance and the tech guy I talked to knew nothing about this fuel screen/ was playing middle man. Lowrance/ Navico makes a fuel data manager and I was unsure if I'd need it to get trip fuel consumption or not, he was as well. After testing it out I'm pretty sure I need the fuel data manager to get this information. I'll update if I get any help from Lowrance otherwise I'll try out the fuel data manager when it gets here and I'm back home mid September.

The start of my NMEA network

I mounted the Point 1 antenna on the dash and drilled a big enough hole to run the Lowrance sonar wire up through a nice grommeted hole in the dash instead of snaking the sonar wire up the side of the dash like was done previously. This probably isn't the best spot to mount it but the only other flat mounting location was on the bow and which would have required pulling the bow floor to run wires and I wasn't willing to dive into that right now. I don't think I really needed it but decided to install it. It's supposed to update the GPS quicker which I don't really need on a 20mph boat and provide an accurate heading.

Getting it to calibrate wasn't easy and without it calibrated the boat wasn't always headed the direction the arrow on the screen was showing. To calibrate it you drive the boat in a 390 degree circle turning at 2-3 degrees per second in calibration mode. I tried to calibrate it in a little bay with trees on the shore and 1-2' chop, it wouldn't calibrate and was making following the chart plotter difficult enough I just unplugged it. I finally got it to calibrate on some more open flatter water and it's worked fine since.

Coming up next the rest of the wiring cleanup and loop de doo elimination project.

 

[barrelrolled]

Let me know if the pictures aren't working. I'm not sure if anyone is following or not. Here's my last round of picture updates for about a month. I'm at work now and get home mid September.

The wiring wasn't horrible but looking under the dash just brought back bad memories of a horribly wired desert race truck and I'd like to not have the problems that truck had. Now I feel confident I know the boat's electrical system and could troubleshoot problems out on the water.

I went through and everything got routed in nice zip tied bundles, held up with zip tie mounts, every connector is a heat shrink connector (except for 1 or 2 which I didn't have the right terminals for), every terminal got dielectric grease, and all wires are now the correct length. All ground wires are now black and most power wires are red. Previously the tachometer light was always on when the motor was on and now it's wired to the running lights. I was able to shorten up the mess of engine wires under the dash and get rid of the big loop by the gauges. The loop of black and red wires on the left side of the dash is for a blue sea 1045 4.8 amp duel USB outlet on order. The steering wheel bezel actually got held down by screws instead of floating and I used one of the mounting screws to replace the zip ties previously mounting the motor buzzer. Every zip tie got cut with flush cuts to eliminate the jagged points from normal cut zip ties. If you cut zip ties and don't have a pair buy one.

The biggest "hack work" I did was make a "fuse block" out of inline ATC fuse holders, it was the cleanest option I had available to work with my schedule.

The boat has a sea dog line electrical panel it works but I don't have a use for all the switches. It uses glass fuses and some wires were kinda melted to the junction bars on the back. One of the switches will power the USB outlet when it's installed. I would like to replace this panel at some point but it wasn't in the cards for this round. I used electrical tape to cover up the unused switch labels and do need to make a new label for the USB and wiper switches.

The main bundle of wire running to the stern had a junction in the wiring loom that was never tapped up/ wires were running in the tray instead of the loom. I got that cleaned up and taped up but it still needs a pico clamp at the dash to hold everything up

Before

After

The wires running to the stern got shortened to the correct length when possible, the NMEA and transducer wires got routed together, the fuel gauge, bilge pump float switch over ride, and anchor light wire got zip tied together. Where I couldn't shorten wires they got zip tied into nice bundles and put in one of the transom flotation compartments. I still need to pull the humming bird transducer next time I'm in there and have some sealer on hand.

The area under the splash well got cleaned up though it still needs some pico clamps installed when it's not raining.

Next update: September trip announcement and more upgrade plans

 

[barrelrolled]

Alaska has a nice system of state and USFS cabins for rent pretty reasonably. The majority of cabins in Alaska require either a long hike in, an airplane, or a boat to get to. We've rented the cabin in Taku Harbor about 20 miles from Juneau for 3 nights. It's one of the few cabins with a dock instead of a mooring ball and has a public floating dock used by recreational boaters and commercial fishermen for overnight stops. While staying at the cabin we plan on making a trip to Tracy arm to see some of the glaciers many of the Alaska cruise ships visit. If we have acquired a dinghy by the time I'm home another cabin is available and we may rent it for another couple nights. We also plan on doing some fishing and dropping a couple crab pots.

Here's the next planned upgrades, hopefully done in the 2 days I have at home before our first trip

-Tie up a couple loose ends in the wiring redo
-Add a fuel data manager to the NMEA network and hope I can get a fuel gauge/ track fuel consumption on the Lowrance
-Install a Blue Sea 1045 4.8 amp Dual USB outlet on the left side of the dash
-Add an auxiliary 12 gallon topside tank under the splash well, add a second fuel water separator, plumb a primer bulb and fuel hose to the kicker so it can run off the aux tank or the integrated kicker motor tank, and put quick connect fittings on both tanks so either motor can be quickly swapped to run on either tank. This will up us from 15 gallons of fuel to 27 gallons of fuel

Possibly buy a dinghy. We are waiting to hear back on an Avon on craigslist or may pull the trigger on a new 7'6" Achilles. With our 10-15' tides beaching just isn't a good option most of the time. If we don't have one this fall we'll have one by next spring. We'll probably tow it the 8 miles to the second cabin we plan on renting but long term it will be on a rack over the canvas enclosure or on the back deck. We are looking at 7'6" inflatables though might try a hard sided dinghy if the right one pops up.

 

[BWR1953]

Neat boat and very neat work! It all looks good. :encouragement: