Wire color scheme doesnt match, im lost.....rss

[Mrcleaningguys]

I got a boat for free, basically. 79 century raven. Has a 165hp inline 6 engine. Did a tree job for a guy and he threw the boat in as part of the deal. It needed a new floor, gauges, and wires needed hooked up. Wires are all there, engine is wired, harnesses are good, I just can't make sense out of the harness running to the dash. I've spent endless hours reading hundreds of threads and articles trying to familiarize myself with wiring a boat, or rather boat gauges. But nothing I've read makes sense for this boat. I finally got my hands on a mercruiser stern drive repair manual and things make a little more sense now but the color scheme its still different.

The gauges I bought came on a dash plate with switches on it. All the gauges were still wired together and everything was ran to an 8 point plug. But the plug doesn't fit my harness and the color scheme is different. One at a time, I replaced a gauge wire with one from my harness. I also took off the blue light wires and purple 12v wires from ignition terminals. I will put them back but I needed room to work.

I believe I have my sending units and ground hooked up correctly. I'm left with a red/white wire, solid red wire, and yellow wire. Also there is a black/blue wire coming from my bow and stern lights. I've also ran a positive and negative from the battery. Positive goes to a fuse block. Negative goes to a separate block. There are 2 wires coming from my gas tank, yellow and red. And finally, there are 2 wires coming from my shifter, both red.

I'll post pics of what i have so far and hopefully someone can give me a Lehman walkthrough for the last few steps. Thank you.

 

[Mrcleaningguys]

No Title

 

[Mrcleaningguys]

No Title

UPDATE:
I found a couple threads pertaining to my wiring issue. I still have questions and didn't want to hijack anyone's thread so I'll post here what I've read and what I've done so far.

Like I said before, I could not find a diagram that matched my engine harness and instrument harness. I am by no means a master electrician, but I know the basics and I can follow directions (if I had decent directions). So I came across 2 threads that mentioned the color scheme of my harness, FINALLY!
The first thread had a diagram and I followed that as best as I could. Until I realized that I didn't have an ammeter, but a volt meter instead. The second thread described the steps to switch over to a volt meter. I'm posting pics of the diagrams and what I've done and what I have left to do.......

I followed the instrument diagram with the volt meter. In the diagram, it shows the Red wire being hooked to the "I" terminal. Someone else told me the white wire should be hooked to the "I" terminal though.......can someone tell me which one goes to which?
Should yellow be hooked directly to the "s" terminal on ignition switch?
And then what goes to the "b" terminal?

In the first screenshot, it has a list of wires in my harness but says purple is unused, even though the diagram shows purple being used. Is it or isn't it?

In the diagram of the engine, switching to voltmeter, it says cut the Red/white at alternator and run it to the solenoid to the large terminal with positive batery wire hooked to it. My battery is ran to starter solenoid, not directly to slave solenoid. Does this make a difference or is it supposed to be that way?

So basically I could use the wiring for dummies step by step walkthrough. I don't want to dump money into this old of a boat. It isn't in the greatest shape as it is. And I figure this is a good learning experience for me In case I have to refloor or rewire a boat in the future. Everybody has to start somewhere right?
I need to know.....
Red/white
White
Yellow
Purple
And whether these instructions to switch over to volt meter are applicable for my boat.

Thank you so much and sorry for the lengthy post.