Messages

Hey Ken,

I sent you a PM. Just wanted to check and see if you received it.

Thanks.

Thanks for your response, Noah. I do have the wiring diagrams sitting right beside me.

Hi Stu!

Thanks a lot! I will check those links out.

Ken, is what Noah says true? You sell harnesses? Name your price, sir.

Thank again, guys.

Hey Ken,

Thank you for the response.

Good point on the voltmeter. Although, that does now have me thinking that maybe I should just put the BMV-712 in the cockpit panel. I've been struggling to solve where I was gonna put that near the nav table. I was thinking that when I upgrade the service panel to one with breakers (https://www.catalinadirect.com/shop-by-boat/catalina-380390/electrical/electrical-panel-master-acdc-85quot-x-19quot/?SearchResults=1), I'd just cut out the analog battery meter and try to slot it in there. Although, I'm not sure it'll fit yet. TBD.

Ken, you mention ready-made, drop-in harness. Aside from the CD one's, I have not come across links to any others. Not even on https://groups.io/g/Catalina30/wiki/11336 . Have I missed something? If somebody would be able to point me towards them, I'd be very grateful. It's not above me to just build one myself. I'm skilled enough to do that, but these days I do enjoy getting my time back by just paying for something. The one thing I'm definitely not looking forward to is running the harness through the boat. Maybe it'll be easier than I think, but my experience with boats, so far, is very similar to software development (my trade) in that your effort estimate will always be off by a factor of 3 to 5, easily.

I live in Ontario, Canada, so my boat is currently on the hard. As soon as it warms up I'm gonna get to tackling this.

Thanks again.

So I'm a proud new owner of a 1985 Catalina 30... Or so I thought I was until I found this forum [grimacing face].

I won't lie, this is my first boat. I've been sailing for the last 5 years with a friend of mine on Georgian Bay in Ontario. At the end of last year, I decided it was time for me to get my own boat. All in all, this Catalina is in pretty good shape. The survey caught a couple of spots of delamination near the back of the keel and those got addressed by the legendary Larry O'Rourke out of Hindson Marina.

After finding and reading this post by Stu Jackson https://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,5078.msg44056.html#msg44056 today, I decided to head over to my boat to have a better look at the wiring. See the below images of what I found.

No serious damage yet, but there does appear to be a bit of melting of the gummy bear connector at the engine. The wiring behind the cockpit panel looks terrible and it's gonna get fixed.

So, I think the current recommendation here is to cut out those gummy bear connectors and butt splice the wires, ya? Should I go ahead and purchase a new wire harness from Catalina Direct and dig into the insane job of installing it or am I safe to keep using the current one as long as I don't find any melted insulation? I would be very thankful for any additional advice around this.

I will completely remove the ammeter and not bother replacing it with a voltmeter since I've already made the investment into a bunch of Victron equipment. One of which being the BMV-712, so I'll be able to monitor not only from that, but from my phone or tablet as well.

Further, I will add in a solenoid between the starter post and the glow plugs (assuming one is not already there - I didn't check) and attach the glow plug switch to the solenoid.

Have I groked all of this correctly? Any other suggestions? I should mention that the engine is the M25XP, so it has the proper alternator bracket.

Thank you, Stu and others for all of this information. I appreciate it.