Re: 18' Starcraft SuperSport restoration
Spent all day Saturday on the wiring. I was going to half-a&& it just to get the gauges working but was talked into going all-in by Tim Fives. The day started by going to a local marine dealer to get a rectifier for my engine. I tried to quickly hook up my tach last weekend and it wouldn't work. Volt gauge also stayed at 12V when running so it was looking like my charging system wasn't working. Signs pointed typically to the rectifier which was a $35 part. It worked! Next went to buy some wire where it became apparent to Tim that I was going to lamely wire up those gauges. Somehow I ended up leaving there with some 4 or 8 gauge (I forget) for main runs to a fuse block, and a number of other spools of 14 gauge for everything else. Stopped at another marine dealer on the way home to get a fuse block Tim had seen there previously. I spent all day on this project. What a pain. But it was worth it. Got all the wires properly run for the fuse block and my accessories: lights, bilge, horn, etc. Got the gauges wired to all their appropriate sending units. I also finally installed the combo GPS/fish finder I got around Christmas time.
At the time of purchasing that awesome multifunction gauge I was bummed about not being able to find a matching tach. So I just ordered a stardard teleflex one. Well I had no idea both would light up red! Sweet!
Fuse block
Took it out yesterday for a fun day with my son, Tim, and his two kids. We had a blast. Went to a smaller, shallower section of the river that I normally only go to with my dad's little boat. However, I have seen larger boats there but was too cautious to take mine. Finally took the plunge and it went fine. We managed to find enough good water to run around in have a nice ride. Deepest part: 8' ! We did go up river a bit too far and definitely found out where you don't want to go. We were going super slow though so no permanent damage. I think I have a pretty good handle on the navigable portions now and will not be afraid to go back (unless it continues to not rain!)
My now working tach showed my WOT RPM with that load to be 5300. Can't complain about that. Near perfect actually. So that confirms that I will be replacing my beat prop with one of the same pitch. We also ran around a good bit with the top up and it went fine. Best part was that GPS/sonar. It is the first sonar I've had yet that actually accurately read the depth when on plane. So handy!!!! especially in that stretch of water. I didn't get a chance to really play with the mapping functions but it seemed pretty cool. Showed my speed and coordinates, and even knew the names of all the islands on this little po-dunk stretch of river. I'm super pleased with that thing for the price.
http://www.cabelas.com/sonars-eagle-cuda-350-s-map-sonar-gps-fish-finder-1.shtml My trim sender isn't working and my temp sender doesn't come much off the lowest reading so both those things will need some troubleshooting.
