Fish Nautique re-wire

EDIT** skip to 3rd post for re-wire.
1978 Fish nautique.
ok dont' leave yet, these came with almost the same wiring setups as the skis of that same era i would think so read on!
351 W.
has a prestolite distributor, and an internally resisted eccell coil.

problem:
coil gets molten lava like HOT and would shut down after about an hour of use. leaving me to throw a bag of ice on it and wait for it to cool, then drive another couple miles only to have it crap out again.
under higher RPM it seemed to hold its integrity but at idle and off idle speeds it would just jones out and die.

Solution:
After talking with MSD on the phone I decided on the MSD 8222 coil which is an epoxy coil and can be mounted sideways. It is not internal resisted though. so i also purchased a couple 8214 resistors.
I know they are a fail point so i got some extras to keep aboard.
started to install and.....
NEW problem,
WTF is going on with my wiring?!
I'm going to quickly explain what i have, but I will draw a quick diagram because nothing like this exists anywhere on the internet and i can't make heads or tails of it all.
coil has 4 wires,
two blacks going to the -
a purple and a red going to the +
red goes to dist
one black goes to dist
one black goes to tach
purple, Now this gets interesting
purple heads toward the stern (where ballast resistor would have been)
then it has a spade connector going to nowhere. right before the spade it is spliced to a grey wire that heads to the hour meter. then is jumped between the other gauges.

i am up[loading some pictures now, i have to figure this out. and i am at a loss aside from replcing the entire ign circuit.

figured an update was in store for this since my coil replacement quickly became a COMPLETE re-wire
This project started a week ago when i decided to replace the coil in this boat.
I started un looming wires and decided to just cut EVERYTHING out and replace it all.
heres what i was working with and its easy to understand why i went as far as i did to simply replace a COIL.
stupid stuff like wires going nowhere and cut on either side of a zip tie out of sheer laziness.


speaker wire used as power wires,
it was a mess, these pictures were taken after i took some stuff apart but it was not a far cry from what is shown.

finished up under the console today, got a new blue sea switch panel fully waterproof, a switched + buss bar on the right and a ground buss in the middle. also installed a small buss bar on the left side that will always be hot, this is what will power the bilge pumps.
every circuit is properly protected now, and I got rid of the amp meter and will be trading it in for a volt meter once i can find one that will match up fairly well.
ign wires are all 12AWG instead of the 16 that went to a 14 that was crimped to another 16 and then jumped to a 12.?! I havent labeled everything yet but it will all be clearly labeled when its finished up.


I cut a quick stainless switch panel out of a piece of a shelf i had taken off a grill that was in the trash, it came out well, i sanded it with 400 grit all in one direction to give it a brushed look.



Still have to put my exhaust back together and make a battery tray and mount the battery switch and pumps. I'll post some pictures once thats all done.
-Tony

Wow, huge improvement!

Thanks guys, I hope it lasts me a long time. all the wire is Ancor brand wire and Ancor brand crimps, I get a pretty good break on that stuff through kellogg so that was a big help. The markup on marine wiring supplies is enough to make you puke.
Everything below the deck line that had to have a crimp got the shrink wrap crimps from ancor. and everything you see in that picture is well above waterline and will never have a chance of being submerged so i didn't bother with the shrink on all that. I have wired a few boats and i use the dielectric and wd-40 method on everything ive done it has lasted the test of time. not looking to help conductivity when putting it inside the connectors but i have seen a lot of bad grounds caused by corrosion forming on them over time. the grease forms a nice little environment for the connectors to live out their lives inside.
The engine harness came out well, and sure as the ocean is deep after i snapped that picture and loomed all of the wiring nice and neat i realized i forgot to attatch two ground and had to cut a good portion of the zip ties just to add two wires haha. it never fails.

One thing i have found over the years to be more important than anything is to not strip the wires further than necessary when putting on crimps. I like to burry the wire into the crimp as far as possible and have nothing protruding out the front and the sheathing butted right up against the crimp.

use of tinned wire and waterproof fuses etc wasn't so common when alot of our SN and BFNs were built. In the commercial fishing boats of that era it was a regular thing to rip out and replace every wire in a vessel every 4-5 years. This wiring will last me the rest of my career with this boat and the next owner as well.
Saltwater has a little more going on in it other than the corrosion of salt itself, and that is electrolysis, and its often overlooked with this size boat but truth is it doesn't matter the size of the boat. Everything is effected by it. So a proper bonding is in order for this boat as well in this coming season.

Nice job! I like sanitary wiring. I too have a Fish Nautique that looks a lot like Day Tony's "before" picture under the console. Fortunately, I have a brother that wires F-15's for a living and he is going to tackle the re-wire project. One concern that he and I have discussed is the fact that the console housing the electrical panels and a lot of the wiring is also the engine cover on the Fish Nautique. While above the water line it is still subjected to a lot of heat and engine fumes in addition to the corrosive salt water environment. There is also a lot of movement as the console must be hinged over for maintenance and we also do it during the initial start-up each day for a visual inspection. Given the environment I believe if one gets 6 - 8 years of live out a wiring job we should be pleased.

8122pbrainard wrote: DayTony wrote: use of tinned wire and waterproof fuses etc wasn't so common when alot of our SN and BFNs were built. . Maybe tinned wire wasn't "so common" but it's been around since the K&T era!!!

wasn't so commonly used i should have said,

10 15 minutes of work using an extension cord,some wire nuts and tape

Gary S wrote: 10 15 minutes of work using an extension cord,some wire nuts and tape

I did not find any wire nuts, but there WAS some romex in that bilge when i started.

finished up the re-wire, wanted to share the finished pictures now that i had time to upload them.


thats all under the dash stuff without the cubbys installed.

this is the battery box with the fuses and switch.
used maxi fses and a peice of rubber to cover them from getting wet from above.



everything tested perfectly, ended up replacing the ALT too because the nut was seized on the stud and i couldn't get the new harness to bolt on.
going to have it fixed and i'll have a backup Alternator which is always a good thing.