Rewiring the electrical nightmare.

After being caught out towing the boat through a monsoon last month my dash has become an electrical nightmare. I'm seriously considering rewiring the complete dash and possibly everything back to the engine. Stereo and battery system are fine and I'm only loosing a couple of 10ths of a volt to the main breaker on the dash. After that everything is a mess, gauges are not functioning and I have a little over 3 volts at the key, but I can start the boat, why I don't know, but the dash never comes to life.

In the process of trying to figure out how I want to do this so I turns out better than the original and I don't have to worry about this stuff again. The new wiring I've done with marine connections and heat shrink survived just fine so I be using that for the new stuff. I'm also considering replacing the harness connectors with deutsh connectors which seem to be the modern waterproof standard. I also hate to splice new wires into the old disconnects. I want to add power and ground busses to the dash to get rid of the daisy chain nonsense that seems to cause the majority of the issues. So far I don't see anything that shouldn't take more than just a little bit of time for a very noticeable upgrade in reliability.

The one thing that I have found that I really like is some breaker toggle switches to replace the ETA buttons. The toggle breakers are just like the ETA breakers and will fit into the same spots, Livorsi makes them and it looks like I could make a better connection with some ring terminals instead of the quick disconects. Only problem is that I can't find any online, Livorsi will sell them to me direct but they want $45 each. That means about $500 with some shipping by the time I get them which is quite a bit more than I want to spend. The next thought is to replace the ETA buttons with regular switches and add some push to reset breakers in a new panel under the dash. Anyone have any ideas or thoughts or maybe cheaper source for a similar product?

All ideas about this are welcome, I don't want to do this and then go 'why didn't I think of that?'. I'm more concerned with upgrading than keeping it original right now, once I've decided exactly what I'm doing then I'll go back and figure out the original looking part.

Sounds no fun..... Most of the reason my gauges originally read off was ground/voltage drop through the original ignition switch and ignition breaker. I still need to go through all the grounds on the rear and the supply wires.

This winter I am pulling my dash out to have a graphic overlay made for the panel. This will be one of many projects for the winter.

Universal on eBay up to a 30 ft boat $90? That's kinda scary

Ebay. I just bought an aircraft (md-80) breaker panel loaded with about 25 klixen push/pull breakers exactly like the ones installed in the mid 80's CC's. Have multiples of 1,2,5, 7.5, 10 and 15A breakers. Got the whole panel for 60 bucks. Beats the heck out of the 20 to 25 bucks a breaker when they are sold individually, or at a marina. May throw a few of them back up on Ebay and get my money back later. They all come with screw terminals, and if I can do half as good a job of landing the wires, and taping them up as mcdonald douglas did, I will be happy. Thats another winter project when the dash pod comes in the house.

Brian, that's what I'm thinking with the 2 busses. Basically there are 2 groups of wires; the power and the gauges and then some stuff I've done. I would like to get all of this into 1 or 2 plugs so I can take the dash out of the boat if I want. I haven't figured out if I would have room to mount the busses to the dash or if they will have to be on the fiberglass.

The reason I like the ring terminal is the secure connection, I'm not planning on taking it off and it won't move otherwise. Same thing with the breakers, I can put a rubber cover on the switch so every thing is sealed up nicely. Right now I'm breaking the threads on the ETA breakers that hold them to the dash and the insulation on the wire is won't strip. The stuff is 20 years old and I think time has just caught up to everything.   The Livorsi stuff is solid and built for boats that live a much harder life in salt water. The best way to go is just do it all new and not wondering what may break as I go, and used parts are definately out, I've got those already.   Looks like theK ETA's are close to $20 now from Whitlake so maybe it's not as much more as I was thinking, I'll have to figure out what the seperate breakers and switches would cost.

The original extra run of wire to the dash really helped, but there has been the occasional issue with one thing or another. This is a huge mess, every wire has to be removed and cleaned up, I can see corrosion on everything. I was hoping to do enough of it to get a few more runs while it is still warm. Just trying to replace a few connectors I quickly found out how uncooperative every thing was. I now need a couple of breakers and a some new wire just from trying to clean up the first connection properly.

mark c wrote: Ebay. I just bought an aircraft (md-80) breaker panel loaded with about 25 klixen push/pull breakers exactly like the ones installed in the mid 80's CC's. Have multiples of 1,2,5, 7.5, 10 and 15A breakers. Got the whole panel for 60 bucks. Beats the heck out of the 20 to 25 bucks a breaker when they are sold individually, or at a marina. May throw a few of them back up on Ebay and get my money back later. They all come with screw terminals, and if I can do half as good a job of landing the wires, and taping them up as mcdonald douglas did, I will be happy. Thats another winter project when the dash pod comes in the house.

The klixon are not switches.

My dash cracked where the screws held it, so I decided to replace it this summer and wow what a job that was. To get those breaker lights out of the dash they have to be cut. Now that i have it back together I don't like my dash replacement so I'm planning on doing it again. This time I'm going to redo it all

Well.

All I can say is I have a boat with the ETA's and another vehicle with the klixon breakers. The klixon were not intended to be used like the ones in the boat.

mark c wrote: Beats the no breakers (or fuses) that are in my boat now. I didn't do it, it came to me that way. They are probably not intended to be used that way in your other vehicle (which i assume has wings)because you operate the equipment differently, but mechanically they both are the same internally, and the breaker itself operates the same way. One would assume the klixens are of substantially higher quality than the ITE, P&B and other, just because of their final intended use. I have them and I'm using them.

Oh ok.

I thought you were using them as switches, they will be a great replacement for the fuses you currently have.

OK, made it down to the boat to look at things and start to try and figure this out, actually hope to test a buss out this weekend. It looks like a thin buss could be mounted under the flat portion of the dash above the pods below the gauges. Mine has a lighter plug on one side so that means there's a couple of inches underneath before the fiberglass. For now the plan is to keep the hot wire on the ignition breaker and jump the wire from that to the buss, and connect the rest of the breakers and the ignition to that buss. I found a cheap double buss at the pontoon dealer so I can use the other side for some grounds if I need to. So far this is looking like it may actually be easier than I was thinking, and having a buss under each side of the dash may be the final solution to keep the wire to the bare minimum.

I would consider a very small, low profile bus for the ignition side as well. That way, you have a couple extra posts for any accessories that go on with your key. And, you could tie the end of your gauge daisy chain back to it...

Oh yeah, there is also a blue (lights) daisy chain for all the gauge lights. These become white for some reason when going up to the speedos. Just something to keep in mind.