Pusher
Lieutenant
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2014
- Messages
- 1,273
Watermann: Cool, good to know and good advice. I'll give it a go with fluid and see what's what. Although, I am now realizing that I have no idea how to drain the fuel—should there be a drain, or will I need to siphon or something?
Pusher: You're probably right. I kind of figured that there were standard switches, but I guess things change over the years! Ha. Who knows what they do now. I'll figure it out thanks!
Sounds like you're where I was a couple years ago... Just jumping into boating and wanting a cheap (neglected) project to learn on. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't know much about electricity but I found boats are pretty easy. There's no real standard setup. Both manufacturers and forum members use whatever looks good really. You can do toggles, levers, or push buttons. I went with a flashy approach since everything else on my boat screams broke gen Y with college debt
https://www.google.com/search?q=led...QldDRAhWjjVQKHYzmC_UQ_AUICCgC&biw=360&bih=559
Just google Led push button.
With these you have to solder the wires on since the chinese market hasn't started shipping the terminals over yet. There are two types of push buttons, the intermitttent and constant, where clicking once means it stays on (running lights) whereas clicking once on the other means it stays on until you let go (think horn). The other draw back besides soldering, is that these are slightly wider than typical toggle switches so you might have to modify your dash.
You have toggle switches on your boat which are easy to use but stick out. Labeling them could be as easy as this
http://www.ebay.com/itm/262741270958
Which you should be able to see at post #17 on my build
http://forums.iboats.com/forum/boat...-17-bell-boy-runabout?p=10264489#post10264489
We can tell you what most of these switches do if you tell us what they're hooked up to.
If it's to your speedometer it's probably a backlight.
If it's to your compass, a backlight
You should have a horn switch and a running light switch.
There might be a blower switch for the motor.
There's likely an accessory switch which powers miscellaneous items.
There may be a main switch before you can fire the motor up.
My approach when redoing my wiring (what wiring was left) was to figure out how I wanted it routed, then I rewired each of the gauges/accessories one at a time.
I can snap a shot under my dash if you'd like to see what I did for keeping the wiring organized.
If I went overkill on you feel free to say so!