All I can say is that while I do love my boat, it's amazing what 26 years and salt will do, not to mention the myriad of hands that have been in the mix.
I had been having trouble with my running lights this year, not working at all, and after a few meager attempts in the past few weeks, I put my nose to the grindstone today. After 9 hours of working on it today (in the nice hot sun...can't really complain
), I have it all fixed up now.
In the process, I found 3 wires that were on the verge of corrosion collapse, so I headed all those off with nice new sealed splices (they would have bit me I am sure at the most inopportune moment). In still trying to trace down the running light woes, I discovered (with a tester) that the ol' 1982 fuse block had finally just crapped out. I replaced it with a nice new Blue Seas block, to nicely compliment the other one I had put in when I bought the boat to wire all my electronics to. In this whole process, I removed 2 of the original harnesses (was an I/O out of the factory, now converted to O/B), and likely can now remove another one, after I replace the ground wire to the new block, since it is cooked too (which was the source of the running light issues, all fixed now, rewired and grounded to the other block). Once that new ground goes in, I am 99% sure I can pull the remaining original harness, as it should connect to nothing, since everything else has been wired by myself, and the Yamaha motor had to have its' own new harness anyway to the dash.
It's truly amazing the amount of $hit you can find when you go digging through the wiring on your boat, not to mention a 1982 vintage like REBOOT. Oh yeah, also ripped all the carpet off the ceiling in the cuddy, since it was drooping purdy bad in a few spots. Made the wiring easier, and when I pull here this year, will get out the sander and the mask to clean it all up and paint it.
All in all, a VERY tiring day of sweating non-stop and abating MANY problems. Pretty happy, but there's always more to do.
Now, on to fishing tomorrow morning for some Fluke, and then pick up some eels to go drown for Stripers tomorrow night.
