zfrilly

Upgrading my boat over the winter with many new things like stereo, led lighting, swim platform, and wake tower. I was at Cabelas and looking into a cheap fish finder over black friday and got a great deal on a Garmin 93sv UHD. It's a 9 inch display that does fish finding, side scan sonar, and allows me to run MNEA 2000 compatible info to. Looking into it more I am thinking about adding a converter box to my current gauge wiring to get it to NMEA. Thinking about using either a Noland RS11 or a Albacombi to do this. They allow you to take your analog gauge signals and convert them to NMEA. with those two units you can name the signal and calibrate them. I would be able to add a few gauges I want like boost/vac, water pressure, and fuel pressure. I would also be able to get my trim tabs, engine trim, and fuel flow readings into the Garmin. It would allow me to have all info on one screen on the dash and even run it on a smartphone or other wireless device. I am thinking about pulling my old gauges out completely and making a panel that bolts into the factory dash that is molded to surface mount the Garmin. It's a pretty large project, one I was not even thinking about till now. Anyone got any ideas on best way to do this? It is a curved dash not just a flat panel. I am somewhat limited in sizeand want to use the factory mounting locations. I was thinking make the panel with clay and then just fiberglass over the clay. That would make a mold for me to then use for making the actual part. I may try and make the final part in carbon. I have never done this before but have been wanting to try for awhile now. I have read up on it all some over the years but have no clue what I am really doing. Does anyone have any suggestions with my whole idea?

Cory H

Crownline uses a POS molded composite plastic dash. Not sure if you could successfully add something like that without compromising the dash. My first boat was a 1994 182BR, second a 1996 266LTD. Both had the same POS dash. Other than the dash, both were good boats, but they both fell apart there. Current boat a 1997 380 PowerQuest. Happy to see a solid fiberglass dash!!!!!!

zfrilly

Well, I may be in for a challenge then. There is a spot where a gauge cluster screws into the dash panel. I am hoping to retain the mounts in it and make a screw in replacement that will accept the Garmin and a few other gauges and switches.

endeavour32

I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to do, but it sounds like you are looking to remove your gauges and replace them with some type of Garmin. This may sound cool, but I am confident, after all the work you will hate it.

I have a 39 Cigarette, and have every gauge under the sun on the dash. I also have a 9" Garmin mounted directly in front of me. The gauges in the Garmin are tiny and pretty much impossible to read while moving. I still 100% rely on my old gauges to monitor the engines. Now if doing a speed run, I will select the screen that only shows current and max speed. This is easy to read as those are the only two things shown. Plus you will absolutely ruin the resale value of your boat when you go to sell it.

So with all that said, leave your dash stock.

zfrilly

Well Endeavour, that's the kinda thing I was wondering. I don't have a lot of room in the helm for everything and figured running everything to the Garmin would work and allow me to add a few extra gauges. If you were to rely 90% on the Garmin for gauges and kept a few normal gauges, what would you keep? Oil pressure and water temp? Fuel? You think upgrading the dash to glass, if done correctly and looks good, would ruin the resale?

endeavour32

All I can tell you is how I feel when I am buying a boat. If I was helping a friend buy a boat, and I saw a boat that some one hacked up the dash to mount a GPS in the dash, I would immediately move on to the next boat.

Putting a glass dash in your boat would be impossible unless you ripped out the entire dash and built a new one. A glass dash consists of the dash being all glass, It will look like one unit, not a GPS mounted on the dash, hence the term. Below I have a picture of a glass dash from a new Sea Ray. I also have a picture of a 1998 Crownline dash. There really isn't a way to get that look in your boat. Anything less than that look, is going to look homemade and cobbled up. Do your current gauges not work, or are you just attempting to update it?

IMO for what your boat is, I think it has a nice gauge set. What do you need that you don't have? Mounting a GPS in a smaller boat is challenging, and unless you are going to fish with your boat, what is it really needed for?



Sea Ray Glass Dash

1998 Crownline Dash

Kcchad

Do you still have the crownline dash?

zfrilly

I do still have the crown line dash for passenger and drivers side.

zfrilly

I have been busy with this project and many others and I never got around to posting any pics. I ended up redoing both my dashes. It's carbon wrapped over the modified factory dashes. Not done yet but figured I would give you an idea since this post came up.

zfrilly