Rat's Nest Revisited

Before we could put the hatch back down in the hallway outside of the head, we went to work on the jumble of old wiring that used to operate the macerator and the old bilge pump and float switch.  Apparently, whenever the PO had any wiring done it was at the cheapest possible hourly rate and/or the lowest competency level.  This is what it looked like after we removed the macerator.  The white hose is from the raw water pump for the air conditioning.  The other hose actually isn't part of the plumbing but carries wiring for the vanity and the port side of the v-berth.  Check out all those butt connectors!

The AC wiring inside that hose was in very good shape and since it had never been altered, we chose to leave it as is.  We cut out most of the remaining patched-up wire and replaced it with new marine-grade wire with shrink tube ring terminals and where we absolutely had to, shrink tube type butt connectors.  Because we like things organized for both troubleshooting and future expansion, we made all of our connections at a 12-position terminal strip.  Each connector was liberally coated with electrical grease to prevent corrosion.

Incidentally, we had several of these terminal strips in stock our garage. We liberated them and a lot of other electrical parts years ago from an abandoned 1961 36-ft. Chris Craft Constellation that was due to be crushed. You never can tell when you might need parts.

Of course, we drew a wiring diagram first.

Here's what the renovated wiring looked like.  The new Johnson 2,200 GPH bilge pump is at the bottom of the photo. The Rule float switch is forward of the pump, under the shelf holding the terminal strip. Just below the pump is a little remaining bilge water, frozen solid. We would like to have cleaned the AC hose and the walls of the stringers but it was much too cold to attempt that for now.

The wiring shown provides power to shower sump that is forward of this area, the toilet flush control switch which will be mounted in the vanity and the Snake River holding tank gauge, which will also be mounted in the vanity. The wiring also preserves the functionality of the helm-mounted bilge pump switch that allows for automatic pump activation via the float switch, a manual override to operate the pump at will and curiously, the ability to be able to turn the pump off completely. Why anyone would ever wish to turn off a fused bilge pump circuit is beyond me, but that's how Silverton did it.  We'd like to correct that but doing so would mean disassembling lots of the existing wiring at the lower helm and it's now January, so we have to be careful to start projects that we know we can complete before spring launch.

The electrical wiring and connectors that we use come from Del City in Milwaukee. We're only mentioning them here because they are a terrific source for many electrical parts that marine stores charge so much for. You can order what you need on line at very reasonable shipping charges but you'll need their catalog to do that accurately. (Their catalog is a veritable dictionary of electrical parts, by the way.) They are at delcity.net or 800-654-4757. Del City is an automotive and marine wholesale source and they have minimums so don't bother if you only need a few small parts.

We're now trying to have at least one project that we can do at home, evenings, during the week in addition to our weekend work on the boat. We finished rehabing the ladder to the fly bridge and it came out really well. Today, we took off the small folding ladder from the swim platform to the deck and brought it home.

 This will be a little more of a challenge since apparently, we can't get the steps off due to the welded mounting points at each end. We'll get it done though because Frances is the best applier of masking tape on the planet.