# Pathfinder 17T Rewire



## kaioticone

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_This post is to assess costs and needed hardware for my rewire project._
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The current electrical system on my boat is in pretty bad condition. There is no dry storage anywhere, and this is what it looks like.

This photo is looking at the rear storage compartment, which stores all of the electronic components, to give you some perspective.









This next photo, is in the compartment, to the left hand, side. It has my fuse box, and main battery feeds (the big black and red wires at the bottom left). All of this gets very damp regularly. As  you can see, this is not a good situation.









This photo is of my live well pump, which feeds from the bottom of the boat. You can see the yellow handle, that is basically a shut off valve, if say the boat starts to flood from the live well pump. Which has happened, lift up the seat to see the live well pump off of its fitting, and water dumping into the compartment - I nearly sank. Just behind and under the live well pump you can just barley see one of my bilge pumps. The one in this picture works as intended somehow.









The next photo is of my right side bilge pump. This one, if I flip the switch I can hear it turn on, but it doesn't appear to function but at maybe 5-10% of it's rated GPH. It definitely does not sound the same as the functioning bilge pump though.









Then on to the right side of the compartment, we have my battery in a trey. It has premium grade _"wing nuts"_ wait! I'm sorry I had to do it Brett. No it is securely fastened with lock nuts. The battery itself seems new, and in good condition.









Now I'm going to take you out of the back storage compartment and take a look at my switches. They are relatively simple. The two on the right hand side of the cluster are for my trim tabs. Toggle Up, Toggle Down. The third switch from the right is my Live well/Bilge Pumps. Push the switch forward for live well, push it down for bilge. And Finally, the switch on the far right is my running lights. Push it forward, both aft and bow lights come on, push it down, only the aft light comes on.










And here is a picture of the ugly wiring that went into making all those switches work.










I do have a pretty good idea of what I need, one of my biggest questions, how much cable am I going to need for this--How do I estimate this? Is this something that could be done over a weekend? (I don't want her down for to long)

Other than that, I could really use some advice on the best way to go about doing this. Should I just remove everything and start fresh? Or should I wire chase, labeling each wire, replace and re-run as necessary? All the red wires actually look orange leaving me to believe they are as old as the boat. Some of the heat shrink on the cable connections seems dry and brittle as well.


Thanks you in advance and I look forward to your responses.


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## Apeacock

I did some re-wiring on my17T about 1 1/2 years ago. I would definitely chase and label, then replace as you go if it is your 1st time doing this work. 

The wire can be bought at surplus store if you have one locally, there is a place in Orlando called SkyCraft where you can buy overstock marine-grade wire, fittings, connectors and shrink for very cheap. The bigger-box retailers typically are much more overpriced.

I would plan on it taking more than a weekend, unless you nail it the 1st time, every time and have all day both days to work on it. The 17T's are tough to manuever in while you are working/repairing them, but are fantastic once they are up and operational.

TomFL posts on this website and did a full re-wire of his old 17T also, you may want to reach out to him.

Hope this helps.

Talbot


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## kaioticone

I did some cleaning of the compartment tonight, I will probably start cutting zip ties tomorrow, and chasing wires, as this is a timely affair. That way the boat stays operational until D-Day. Which, hopefully by then I have collected everything I need, and can just push right through. Although, one of my biggest issues with any project is actually accumulating exactly what I need. 90% of the time I end up making several trips to complete one task, and I'm sure most of you reading this can understand the frustration involved in that. So I'm hoping to skip that entirely. The only good Marine Supply I know of in Bradenton is West Marine, and I know just from picking up a few odds and ends the other day there, it was expensive. 

I will also be awaiting further comments from the community regarding my project.

Thanks for the reply*


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## TomFL

Idea thread here: http://www.microskiff.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1247153549/0

Great hull, and a perfect one to try for a first rewire project as it's very simple. 

Good luck, keep us posted

-T


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## kaioticone

After looking over the electrical system for a good while, the only confusing part I see is the switches. The switch itself doesn't appear to have any sort of markings letting me know +/-, perhaps the new switches will have a diagram so I know how to wire them-- I did however chase every wire on the boat, and wrote down where each goes just in case I run into issues. Seems all the switches share a ground to the neg bus bar on the fuse box, and the multi-function switches were a bit strange, particularly for my lights, both on--off--rear on is a bit strange. Guess I'll see when I get to the nitty gritty.

I bought a bunch of fun stuff:

2x 500gph rule Bilge pumps w/ internal float switches
blue seas fuse box
Tiny Tac
new controls -- but I rushed and bought 7pin controls and I need 10pin, so going to ebay those when they come in -- little worried about getting the throttle set correctly, I did write down the current throttle position so hopefully that will help 
New steering wheel 
steering cables 
bobs machine stabilizer plate 
going to be getting a PT prop, just waiting for my Tiny Tac to get an estimate of where I'm running currently WOT.

Been busy all weekend so didn't get to do any work, but I'm going to purchase all of the wires I need this week, it's looking like 29ft of a small gauge (I don't know exact gauge, but guessing it's the standard size), then 9' of a slightly larger wire, then all that is left is battery cables: battery to post, post to engine.

Before running the wires though I want to paint the compartment how does this sound:

-Clean compartment thoroughly
-Sand compartment with a medium grit stand paper 
-Brush on Alwgrip Cloud White epoxy paint allow to dry fully
-Spray on splatter pattern krylon spray paint.


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## TomFL

Get all your electrical supplies at genuinedealz.com and save yourself a ton of $$. The battery cables will be a good bit of $$...

-T


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## kaioticone

As mentioned before, I've got everything I need. I cleaned, ran 180g sand paper over everything, cleaned with 333, and used interlux bilge coat - white.

It was inexpensive and available at my local supply shop. I have one coat down, getting ready to put another, but here is what it looks like. Once the second coat dries, I will begin wiring my skiff. More pictures to come.

_--Don't mind the slop on the seal, that's getting replaced too --_










And as others have mentioned, contorting your body to get to those back edges is a real pia.


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## kaioticone

I am waiting for the second coat of paint to dry, figured I would think about how I will route things, please correct me if this is not right.

Thanks,


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