Dash Switches

[Yukon Mike]

I have recently bought my first boat which is a 1985 16' doral with a 70 horse Evinrude,needless to say there is some work that needs to be done to it to bring it up to my standards.

My question is, the dash has 7 switches on it, none of which work, and looking at the back of the dash many of the switches dont even have wires to them anymore. just wondering what all these switches would have been controling?? all i can figure is, light's, bilge pump and horn. what would the other 4 switches be for? any help or suggestions would be greatly appriciated.

 

[Calhere]

Re: Dash Switches

I dont know about your bout but on the boat i bought the guy over killed on switches 3 rows of 5. It is very easy to fix just rewire the switches and at least this way you know whats for what and its set up the way you want it.

 

[cdnfthree2]

Re: Dash Switches

I agree. I recently bought a 1985 boat and the easiest way to know everything will work when you need it to is to rewire everything. Mine had swithes for the things you've already mentioned plus one for ACC lights on sides of console, and deck wash pump, and compass backlight. Other possibilities could be an aerator for live well if you've got one, power to downriggers if ever they were installed, or anything else you could imaggine that would run on
12v. Since they don't have wires now, they're probably just room to grow.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Dash Switches

see the 2 wiring post at the top of the forum. i agree, most of the time much easier to get the wire cutters out and start over. just did it to a pontoon boat.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Dash Switches

Shucks, I had to fix wiring issues on my brand new pontoon. The rats nest they called a wiring harness is a joke.

 

[Yukon Mike]

Re: Dash Switches

Well, i started looking at the wireing and found a few cracked wire's and just a mess, so i decided to replace everything, good thing i did, i found 1 section that had 3 wire's chewed by mice and where in very bad shape to say the least. plus i think it's a very good way to get intimate with my first boat