Under the helm...

[Captned]

As long as I'm under here, what can I do about this? Does anybody else have a rat nest like this or am I the winner?

Captned
78 46 Conv

 

[yachtsmanbill]

That ones a work of art -- sort of ws

 

[Blaine Thorpe]

That could use a little cleaning up, but it looks pretty good compared to some other I have seen.

 

[newinlet]

Looks like stock wiring with some electronics added not bad at all

 

[REBrueckner]

What can I do about this? Leave it alone!

All you would be doing is improve the appearance, not the function...the wiring looks fine.

If you have severe anal tendencies you can trim off some extra wire bundles/loops and make subsequent wire runs are either horizontal or vertical which looks neatest. Diagonal runs just never look as nice. Bundling wires together rather than running each via a separate route also improves appearance and usually makes a firmer job.

But as long as wires are not swinging loose, there are no corroded terminals, and the area remains dry, you can likely find much more productive things to do with your time and effort.

 

[(Nobody You Know)]

You can throw a loooott of money at cleaning that up but your's is deffinitely better than most I've seen. If anything you might want to consider updating some of the labels on the wires connecting to the buss. They tend to fade over time.

 

[luckydave215]

Does anybody else have a rat nest like this or am I the winner?

Sorry to disapoint you but I'm the definite winner. I tried to take some poics, but my camera threw up!
My boat's a beauty (if I do say so myself ) but the PO wasn't an electrician by any stretch of the imagination. Unfortunately, he thought he was, and did a lot of wiring on the boat (mostly under the dash thank god), which I'm restoring to original as I go.

 

[MikeP]

Interesting - the wire layout to the same type terminal strips is totally different than on our 1980 53. Our boat's wiring is bundled and routed horizontally/vertically with no diagonal runs at all. The only wiring that was not bundled and so routed was a POs added stuff (all gone now). It's very neat and a model of how wiring should look. I had assumed that was the way all Hatt wiring was done...

Perhaps the way they routed the wiring changed during the years; perhaps it was done differently on different models; or perhaps the wiring guys varied from day to day...

While writing this something was nagging at me that I had read so I went to the Pascoe site and found this line re the 53 series: "And whereas the wiring in the 53 Motor Yacht is nice and neat, for some strange reason in the convertible it is messy."

I don't understand why the wiring would be different - I guess Pascoe couldn't either - but I agree with everyone else - the wiring looks perfectly fine and there is NO reason to mess with it.

 

[garyd]

Sorry to disagree with some folks but you need to clean it up for the most part.

Strain relief must be done with two tie downs else the tail can wag the dog. Some of the wires on the left side of the photo are hanging all their weight on the connector and they can also swing with the boat movement. These need to be tidied up before you go on a long trip.

I would also get a piece of ABS to cover the terminals when your done. Some of these are hot maybe from two different batteries you don't want anything bouncing around in there that could lay against them.

I used the Tie wrap mount from boaters world good for 75 lbs ea. they use one #8 screw in the middle, come 25 to a pack buy several packs they are addictive. The one cool thing is once you use these to add a wire or move wires is no big deal just cut the tie wrap do what needs to be done and install another.

Remember a job worth doing...

garyd