One Riggin' weekend...

A picture is worth 1000 words....


Busy weekend.

 

You did make a lot of progress. What are the angle brackets on the transom and what is the device mounted next to the RH speed pickup?

jim

 

Hey Jim

The brackets are for the rope guard. They are made of solid stainless steel which has been polished. The originals were steel with chrome plating - which had rusted and peeled. I had the new ones made to match the original dimensions. I'm having a new rope guard made as well, as the original is not tall enough to clear the engine.

It would have been easier and cheaper to simply buy a new rope guard but I wanted this particular design due to the width of the rope guard and the location where it crosses the motor relative to the back of the boat. We had a thread on this awhile back. The commercially available units don't prevent the rope from getting caught on things.

The unit mounted to the transom on the starboard side is a depth transducer for the depth gauge.

The wiring was time consuming because I crimped, soldered, and shrink wrapped every single connection and every single snap and/or loop connector. Common ground and power feeds among guages were daisy-chained with double-eyed wires that I made all at one time. I also installed a power bus under the panel which is serviced by 6 gauge wire from the battery. The instruments which require power are powered by the key-switched power lead from the tach harness and are grounded through the tach harness ground. The instrument lights, bow light, stern light, depth finder, and bilge are each wired to switches on the switch gang and are grounded to the main ground bus.

It looks messy in the picture but everything is pretty neat under there. There is just a lot of stuff going on in a small space. Here's the final layout:

No. 1 Speedo (80MPH)
No. 2 Speedo (Airguide)
No. 3 Speedo (Airguide)
Tach
Depth
Trim
Volts
Mercury Smartcraft Monitor
Water Temp
Water pressure
Fuel Level

I also have a hobbs meter and an ammeter which I am not using. The smartcraft monitor already monitors these parameters through digital output. The smartcraft monitor also provides a 4th speedometer that operates off of a digital sensor from the shaft mounted pitot, RPM, water temp, water pressure, fuel flow, oil warning, overheat alarm, engine trim, and I can't remember what else. You have to scroll through screens for all of this information so it is still worthwhile having the analog gauges for information that you need to see all of the time.

Tonight I will be installing the oil tank and battery. Then I need to put in the fuel tank, fill tube, vent line and hook up the fuel tank ground and fuel sender wire to the tank. Last thing will be the carpeted footwell bulkhead and seat mounting. That should bring me pretty close to a finish for this year. I'd like to do a rear bench, for which I have material to match the seats, but that will have to wait until next winter. Same thing with the stereo - I'm not going to get that installed this year - I just don't have time.

Greg - don't worry - I'll make time to install a drink holder THIS YEAR.... :drink:

I hope to finish up this week. I'll keep you posted.

MarkBano

MarkBano

 

I thought that was a depth sensor. If that mount does not work out, I have mine mounted in the center of the boat by my left foot. It works fine through the balsa core. I fabricated an aluminum cover for it so it won't get stepped on. When I am easing into shore I get a reading closer to the bow which I like.

There ain't no cup holders in my boat. They are for soccer moms in mini vans. Putting one in an 18 would be like putting one in a 32 Ford roadster with hemi power. I would throw the drink out of it in the first few minutes. I carry a little fabric cooler in the foot well and I put my bottle of water on the floor under the throttle. I can wedge it in there pretty well.
:roll: :smash:

 

So how do you feel about cup holders, then, Jim?

For the record, we don't own a minivan...

Spillage is certainly an issue. I like the cooler idea.

Still, I think I need a cup holder for those slow cruise rides. We're on a chain of lakes and we spend some fair amount of time in the "no-wake" zones between lakes where a cup holder works pretty well. I didn't spend nearly 2 years on this boat just to hide it on our lake... :lol:

I have an idea for a design that would flip back up under the dash out of sight when it isn't being used.

 

Hey, I have to have a little fun once in a while. My Impala came with one cup holder in it which I have dumped more than once.

jim

 

Fuel fill spouts

Hopefully we can get some input on this before Mark gets to mounting his fuel tank and fill spout.

Does anyone know the trick to mounting a fuel filler on an 18' dyne so it fill nicely with a gas station pump? Any Dyne I have put fuel in so far, is always a slow struggle. If you manage to get the nozzle just right in the spout, you can get an ok flow into the tank (still nowhere near wide open speed on the pump, but pretty good). But it's always a pain to get it just right. Then when you finally get it going good, I have noticed a tendency to get a burp of gas. This is sometimes when the tank is full, and sometimes when it isn't.

Anybody have any experience in getting dynes to fuel nicely?

 

Mine had a metal tank when I got it and there was no problem. It now has a plastic tank and the filler in the tank is smaller because the thickness of the plastic pipe is greater. This is the problem. It is very difficult to get the filler into the tank pipe itself. I guess an adapter to slip on the filler to neck it down would work. If I climb up on the deck and look down into the fitting I can get the filler into the tank pipe itself and it goes good.

The metal tank is the answer. When I am home I fill out of cans with a siphon so there is no problem. I completely forgot about this issue until you brought it up.

jim

 

It should not burp if the filler is all the way into the tank pipe. If it burps in this case, something is wrong with the vent line. It the filler is only in the deck fitting and not in the pipe, then there are problems.

jim

 

Mine had a metal tank. No problem. Filled great at the station. For pictures of where my vent and fill were go to the photo section. Also, thumbs up for the drink holder, especially for chain cruisin. Get the ones like I had Mark. Grasp all types of cans/canisters perfectly. Numerous runs, no spills, no errors.- Little baseball humor.

Greg