re-wiring my 83
Printed From: CorrectCraftFan.com
Category: Repairs and Maintenance
Forum Name: Engine Repair
Forum Discription: Engine problems and solutions
URL: http://www.CorrectCraftFan.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=42111
Printed Date: April-27-2024 at 7:37pm
Topic: re-wiring my 83
Posted By: dwcar
Subject: re-wiring my 83
Date Posted: November-04-2017 at 5:55pm
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I am planning on re-wiring my boat this winter. What do you guys think about bumping the size of the wire up one gauge. I believe my boat has 10 and 14 gauge. Thinking about going to 8 and 12. Pros and Cons??? What about doing away with the two male/female plugs in the line. Just wiring it straight? Pros and Cons??? What about getting away from the daisy chains under the dash and wiring all the gauges ground wire to a main ground post??? ------------- 83Ski |
Replies:
Posted By: gt40KS
Date Posted: November-04-2017 at 11:34pm
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10 ga. typically can support 20-25 continuous amps, 14 ga will do 9-10 amps per wire. If any one item requires more than this you should use a larger gauge. Running multiple systems on a single power cable would perhaps depend on whether or not any of these or which ones might be used at the same time. I myself am not a fan of daisy-chained power OR ground cables and as such when rewiring my boat recently I split most such combos and ran both to their own respective locations. The exception was the main gauges since the power requirements for all of them combined were comfortably lower than the rated capacity of the 14 ga wire used and with the massive amount of wiring back there I felt less wire bundles would be helpful. These were however new, very efficient gauges - older gauges may require a bit more power. The factory 10 ga main power shunt to the dash area was sufficient for me since I was upgrading nearly every component to newer, more efficient equipment and LED lighting and I don't plan on adding anything else that would require more demand. Some may say increasing the ground isn't necessary so save the money. My 2 cents - with the negligible cost a modest increase in gauge certainly won't hurt. This is usually my thoughts on the power cables as well. However the cost difference when going from 10 to 8 is markedly more respectively than from 16 to 14 or even 14 to 12. You also have to weigh the impact of the the less flexible cable and how it is going to work with the connectors at both termination points. ------------- JCCI 1995 Ski Nautique GT40 |
Posted By: 8122pbrainard
Date Posted: November-05-2017 at 5:48am
Wire sizing:  ------------- /diaries/details.asp?ID=1622" rel="nofollow - 54 Atom /diaries/details.asp?ID=2179" rel="nofollow - 77 Tique 64 X55 Dunphy Keep it original, Pete < |
Posted By: 8122pbrainard
Date Posted: November-05-2017 at 6:17am
Don, Flexibility and issues with termination with crimp on terminals will not be a problem if you use marine rated wire. I highly suggest using it since it's a class 3 stranding which has more and finer strands of wire for every given gauge size. Marine wire is made to be flexible. It's also tinned to prevent corrosion. For crimp on terminals, I also suggest using a high quality heat shrink adhesive lined terminal. https://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=11928" rel="nofollow - Jametown is a good source for both the wire and terminals. ------------- /diaries/details.asp?ID=1622" rel="nofollow - 54 Atom /diaries/details.asp?ID=2179" rel="nofollow - 77 Tique 64 X55 Dunphy Keep it original, Pete < |
gt40KS wrote:Posted By: boatdawg
Date Posted: January-30-2018 at 5:31pm
| I re-wired my 81 Mustang last winter. I eliminated all of the plug connectors and straight wired everything as you mentioned. Those connectors seem to be prone to corrosion.. My thought was the only disadvantage in doing this is that it would require individually disconnecting or cutting the wires if you ever had to pull the engine. Otherwise no problem. You could wire every gauge directly to the negative post on the battery but I left the "daisy chain' as is. I used tinned marine wire from tinnedmarinewire.com and was very pleased. I used all heat shrink connection terminals. Fun and rewarding project. One tip I found helpful was using a stiff battery cable to pull or "fish' the wires under the floor from the dash to the bilge. I used the same gauge wire that was original to the boat. |
Posted By: dwcar
Date Posted: January-31-2018 at 2:59pm
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Thanks for the advise John. Did you go back with the same size wire?? ------------- 83Ski |
Posted By: hal2814
Date Posted: January-31-2018 at 5:36pm
| I haven't completely rewired the dash on my 83 Ski but I have bumped up the wire size to 12 on the pieces that needed replacing. I thought about doing a complete rewire. The idea of getting rid of all of the daisy chaining is appealing but then there are some things like the switch lighting that still makes sense to run as a chain. I went back and forth on a few ideas on how to rewire but instead just ran a new fuse block and grounding block for the auxiliary stuff I'm running like stereo and ballast pumps. I ultimately decided to keep the dash original in case I ever have to look something up on the schematics. I never considered bypassing the plugs and personally wouldn't do that in case I ever had to replace the engine wiring harness (or as boatdawg points out, the engine).. |
Posted By: 8122pbrainard
Date Posted: January-31-2018 at 6:01pm
A good cleaning and then some dielectric grease works wonders on the harness plugs/receptacles. ------------- /diaries/details.asp?ID=1622" rel="nofollow - 54 Atom /diaries/details.asp?ID=2179" rel="nofollow - 77 Tique 64 X55 Dunphy Keep it original, Pete < |
Posted By: shierh
Date Posted: February-01-2018 at 4:47pm
| I used ground bus and + bus under the dash and made all wires pretty. Daisy chain the instrument lights is next. |