Wiring Spaghetti

[sailsmanship]

Bought a boat that has alot of wiring Gremlins. Trying to trace all the hack jobs. Alot of the electronics are jumpered to the guages. I heard that can cause guage and other problems. Does anyone thinks it is best to run two heavy guage wires from the battery to a fuse block and bus bar by the dash to clean it up?

 

[tangent]

Re: Wiring Spaghetti

Yes, that's a good idea. Anything you can do to provide clean power helps. Reducing the number of connections, keeping signal wires for different devices separate from each other and from gauges also helps.

 

[jlinder]

Re: Wiring Spaghetti

Sounds like you are on the right track. Keep the old wiring and you will never be totally free of problems.<br /><br />1. Start with a nice heavy guage wire and remember to fuse it near the battery.<br /><br />2. Once you have the fuse block and ground bus bar you can move wires one at a time to the new block.<br /><br />3. Very important - make complete drawings of the wiring as you put it in. It will help you a lot should you ever have problems.<br /><br />4. Don't skimp on the wire. Pay attention to the current draw. For example, voltage guages draw little power, light switches draw more, a cigarette lighter draws a lot more.<br /><br />5. Get good crimpers and heat shrink to seal the connections.<br /><br />do it right and you will never have to worry about it again. Good luck

 

[DangerDan]

Re: Wiring Spaghetti

I recently did the same thing to my boat. I found two 8 gang fuse panels and re-ran all the wiring under the dash and to many added eltronics units. About the only thing I didn't change were the gauges. Much better now. Just follow the suggestions from above and I'll add one. invest 15 bucks in one of those label tape machines and tag all your wiring. Makes it much easier to find things. I also mounted a light just under my fuse panels to aid in finding things in the dark.

 

[tony_cliffy]

Re: Wiring Spaghetti

To reiterate what DangerDan said...<br /><br /> tag your wiring. <br /><br />You (or worse, some mechanic) will be fooling around with it again in the future so having it labeled will save you a lot of time and frustration in the future.