Wildfire

OK, I have spent the whole blasted day pulling 30 years of scrap copper out of the Magnum. Some of it was regular old house wiring! I am not kidding, I have a trash can full and the boat still runs!

So heres my plan - rewire the thing from stem to stern. I do have Charlie Wing's wiring book so maybe I won't burn the thing up. Since I am going to go to all this trouble, I figure I might as well put new gauges in it. Right now, I have VDO, Teleflex and some other brand. It looks like crap.

I have room in the existing dash for 4 - 2 1/16 and 1 - Tach. There is a hole in the side of the console for an hour meter.

What gauges should I have and who's should they be? I have searched the board and it seems that Gaffrig and Nordskog are very highly thought of.

Also, I don't know whether a volt meter or ammeter is better. I would really appreciate some help.

One more, has anybody used the Posi-Lock connectors instead of crimp connectors? Their system looks super slick, but does it work in our world?

Thanks in advance.

B.R.S.

Scott I like Faria guages. I have used them on a couple of different boats and they have worked very well for me. The price is pretty good and they are life time guarenteed. I had a feul pressure sender start leaking and they took care of the problem quickly. Thi is the best pic I have and its not very good. I am in the process of replacing the rest. They also have 100 mph speedos.

Dredgeking

nordskog makes the gps speedo for one of the gaffrigs. fountain is using the nordskog gps speedo, with gaffrig everything else. skater uses some auto meter. they are all good quality. it's just what you decides looks good in your boat. gaffrig is the most recognized name.

Cord

Don't waste your time with a ameter. The gauge will show a brief charge after starting, then fall back to show a very slight charge. Also, all of the power for the alternator must be run through the gauge. This means that you will end up with a heavy gauge wire running from the alternator up to the dash and back to the battery. This wire will always be hot.

The voltmeter though will show the current state of the charging system. It will be much more informative. All you will need is a 14g wire running from the source to the gauge to ground. You want a good heavy wire to cut the resistance. You don't want to pull the signal off the forward wiring harness unless you've used a heavy enough feeder wire to eliminate a voltage drop. In the normal circuit it's typically acceptable to run a 10-15% voltage loss. This would cause the gauge to read as if something was wrong.

Wildfire

Cord, thanks for clearing up the volt/amp question.

Would you run the heavy pair (#4 - 50 amp with a 3% drop in 20') up to the helm to power the fuse & distribution panel. Then, take everything off that? Even if it requires running smaller wires (say #12) back to the stern for things like the bilge pump, white light, tabs, etc?

Regarding the panel, breakers or fuses? I was thinking of using the spade type. Anything I should know?

Is there any place to get numbered, heat shrink wire labels?

Thanks in advance.

Mbam

Scott,
In my experience quick on = quick off, in other words don't use spade connectors. The gold standard (at least in my shop)is bare solderless ring terminal connectors with epoxy lined heat shrink. If you are really anal (not a bad thng), you can solder these before heat shrinking. As Cord pointed out, don't use an ammeter. This avoids having the run to and from the dash in series with your alternator. I don't know what kind of accessories you are powering up front, but #4 is a little overkill. #8 will more than handle most normal loads (lights, pumps, blower, etc) with no problem. Gauge wiring can be as light as #18, running lights #16, #14 or #12 if you have a mega bilge pump. The only thing I can think of on a boat that really needs some major wire gauge would be a big stereo amp or anchor windlass. We wire everything home run, this means that a separate pair goes to every item, all grounds come back and terminate at the same ground block. An decent way to make up a harness to suit your needs uses an electric drill. Take the 2 or 3 wires for your bilge pump or other load (leave plenty of extra), clamp one end in a vise, then put the other end in the drill. Pull hard to keep tension on the wires then use the drill to twist the wires. We do one of these for each circuit, then run them all together to the back of the boat. Split loom of the nylon sleeve stuff works real good to keep the harness together. I think T&B (Thomas & Betts) makes shrink labels.