The day after Christmas

On Monday, while everyone was out snapping up those post-holiday bargains, we went down to the boat to get in another afternoon of work.  On the way, we dropped off the port starter at Joe's Auto Electric, which is actually run by Pete, Joe's son (or grandson). Joe's mother checked us in and mentioned how winter was great time of year for jobs like ours because Pete doesn't charge as much in the winter. That's always good news.

The issue we're trying to deal with now is checking the v-drive oil cooler for obstructions. That is really only accessible with the heat exchanger still off.  We tried applying some heat but the hose wouldn't budge.  We couldn't get too wild with the heat gun because the oil cooler had lots of old, tacked-on wiring in front of it. Here's the jumble of old wiring.

We can't stand this kind of sloppy wiring. We were going to have to leave the large red battery cables as they are but the other wiring (horn, battery charger, aft bilge pump, etc.) needs to be cleaned up.

Our preferred method for making connections like this is to use a terminal strip. New boats never use this method of connection but we like to because it is versatile and easy to troubleshoot. If properly installed with the connections coated in electrlydic grease, it poses no safety hazard and will last forever, unlike the modular connectors that are used on most newer boats today.

We mounted a 12-post terminal strip on a deck support and began cutting away all the old wring and reconnecting everything properly.  Here's the terminal strip before we began wiring.

Even the terminal strip has a back story. Bill liberated this one and several others years ago from a 1960 35-ft. Chris~Craft Constellation that was going to be scrapped.  It's been stored in our miscellaneous boat parts box even since and now it's going back in to service.

As usual, this little re-wiring job left us with lots of garbage, much of which should never have been put in there in the first place. We also found a wire that had pulled loose from the engine wiring harness. It appears to be a ground but we reconnected it while we were down there.

With the wiring cleaned up, we'll be able to tackle getting that hose off the inlet to the V-drive oil cooler so we can see of there is any sea grass and other junk partially obstructing it. That hose is 1-1/2" ID wire-reinforced hose, truly nasty stuff to work with.  It has probably been there since the boat was built so pulling the hose off to inspect the oil cooler inlet may pose a challenge.

But, what the hell. It's winter and getting things done on the boat is fun.