Ok you guys were right. Need motor swap advice.

Caseyjoe

Seaman
Joined
Jun 19, 2017
Messages
70
Guess I'll start another one. I've got to get the electric part of this thing right. I've really been dreading this one. The switches work I guess, or at least they light up when I click them over. All the fuse links on the entire boat are corroded into white dust. I think it may be better to just rewire the entire system but I can't find those switch/ breakers anywhere. I desperately need a tach but I'm not sure which one to get. It's all hooked in together. My voltage meter works but nothing else. Honestly the tach is the only real guage I'm concerned with. I can GPS speed easily if I ever care. I have a stereo and I really need lights but if I could figure where to buy switches I would think that to be easy. The tach kills me though. I really need that.
 

ahicks

Captain
Joined
Sep 16, 2013
Messages
3,957
Most consoles are set up with 2 12v feeds. One from the engine, used for things like the tach and volt meter, then another right from the battery. Grounds can be separate or the same in my experience. Watch the loads when working with smaller wire. That's why you don't want to try and run the lights from the 12v supplied by the engine harness.

It's easy when you look at just one circuit at a time. Can be overwhelming when looking at all of them!
 

Caseyjoe

Seaman
Joined
Jun 19, 2017
Messages
70
I do understand that and I really don't want to mess with what comes from the engine. Is the guages all that the engine pushes? Or are all the guages getting power from the key? And is the key hooked to the battery AND the engine? My engine hooks to the battery with its own dedicated cables. I replaced the key switch and it was simple. I would like to just run new everything, wires, fuses, lights, switches from the battery. I've done lots of electrical on cars but it just doesn't seem to be the same. Or is it?
 

Caseyjoe

Seaman
Joined
Jun 19, 2017
Messages
70
There was just several wires connected to the key. I didn't know if the key has an acc like a car, or if I can just run radio, lights, etc from the switches hooked to the battery.
 

clemsonfor

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Joined
Sep 19, 2005
Messages
1,011
Wire how you like but like said watch the load if pulling from one small wire. Pull you a dedicated 10 gauge or something to a fuse block and have it as switched power with an accessory switch and pull radio and lights and all from it. You can put secondary switches so that the lights don't turn on when the main is turned on etc.
 

Caseyjoe

Seaman
Joined
Jun 19, 2017
Messages
70
Excellent. Thank you Clemson. I had just decided to get back on here to ask about what guage main wire would be sufficient. I have installed lots of amps and we always used huge wire in the 0 and 00 range with 60 amp fuses. Didn't expect it to be anything like that but wanted to be sure I carried enough. Thanks again guys. I'd be REALLY lost without you.
 

ahicks

Captain
Joined
Sep 16, 2013
Messages
3,957
I went to Home Depot and bought 15' of 10/3 wire. It's very fine strand with soft insulation - like you might use for rewiring a saw or other heavy tool. Used 2 of the 3 wires to go from the battery to a power and ground buss. Made for a clean install, leaving an extra wire for back up further down the road. It was like 8.00 or so.
 

Caseyjoe

Seaman
Joined
Jun 19, 2017
Messages
70
That would be the cheapest thing I have bought for this boat to date. Seems like they price gouge a bit when it comes to boats.
 

Caseyjoe

Seaman
Joined
Jun 19, 2017
Messages
70
I sure hope so Hawk. I really don't want to be disappointed in power. Even though I never kicked the 225 you could tell it had tons of power.
 
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