Trojan Boat Forum

A new day with "not so bad" weather. Temp around freezing point, or 32F if I´m not wrong. I had to remove a lot of snow from My Trojan, quite a lot actually. When finished the snow-work I started to remove the old instrument panel. I opened it up, and God Grief what a mess. Looked more like a snakes nest.



Inside the "nest".

I removed the old panel the easiest way. I used a "snipper" and here is the result. I will change the entire electric system, so a couple of wires are no problem.

Feel like a Florida vacation? Come and work on my wiring! My boat has a nest worse than yours.

FooferB: Like to take a trip over, but I have too much to do here... Thanks anyway! So your nest is worse than mine? I have planned to make 2" tubings from the panelplace down to engine room. It is much easier to route the wires and stuff then. And so I will put on two wires from battery terminal, "fat" wires for the consumption from battery bank to a fusepanel inside where the shore power used to be. With main switches and all.



Anyone out here who knows where I can get door like this? And also the door for sleeping compartment?

PK, It is always a pleasure reading your posts, keep them coming. As for your sliding door, Searay uses that exact same slider in many different sizes in most of there boats.

the sliding doors ARE available.

Just google TAMBOR DOORS.

On the electrical, USE CRIMP ON WIRE TERMINALS AND HEAT SHRINK TUBING.

This is important.

RWS

RWS wrote:the sliding doors ARE available.

Just google TAMBOR DOORS.

On the electrical, USE CRIMP ON WIRE TERMINALS AND HEAT SHRINK TUBING.

This is important.

RWS

Also make sure there is absolutely NO signs of ANY corrosion before crimping and heat shrinking. Just the smallest amount will spread like wild fire!

Thanks for good advice! I think I will try to solder the wiring, before crimping any tubes outside. Or??

Same thing CLEAN CONNECTIONS!!! Less trouble in the future!

Offcourse Allen, I will allways clean the wire...... I will be back little later today (our time), maybe with some pictures from the work. How about using aluminium sheet for frontface on instrument panel?

Keeping it polished out ought to be fun!! Don't know that it could be done w/ aluminum polished out, but I have taken chrome plated peices for my SBC and had them powder coated translucent red and put on the engine looked liked I had red chrome on the engine! Would be nice if some thing like that could be done for your dash. Would sure make it unique!!

PK - don't waste your time with solder.

Simply crimp the connectors and use the heat shrink.

Some folks dip the stripped wire end in RTV silicone, then do the crimp. That does seem to work well but I don't know how it does it.

Before you scrap out your existing pod instrument panel, take a look at my older post to see just how nice the factory one can be repaired without the need to reengineer something new.

RWS

RWS: The panel I have is not the original panel. It is something made from starboard, roughly cut on the edges. Earlier owner(s) had put clear silicone to make the panel water proof. It looked awful. I will put in a picture of it. Just gimme 5 minutes.....

I think somewhere on here I saw a pic where they used Carbon Fiber panel for the instrument panel. Looked REALLY cool!!!

I Always use heat-shrink type connectors for 12v. The heat shrink is built right in. I also dip the ends in dialectric grease then wipe most of it off leaving just a thin film.

Ron

As you see, there is no good solution with starboard. Maybe i should try mahogany or teak. Or carbon fibre.