1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Station Radio Box II

Before I can have the aft deck headliner installed, I’ve got to get all of the wiring and other things that are in or attach to the hardtop ceiling installed. The helm station radio box is looking pretty good, but I still have to figure out how I’ll attach it to the ceiling then attach various electronic pieces.

I decided to use 1/2″ plywood to attach the box to the ceiling

The plywood is the same height as the Whisper Wall headliner track, so it will be perfectly spaced away from the ceiling frames.

Next day, the epoxy glue is cured

Attachment tabs are pre-drilled for wood screws

Ready to test fit

It was shortly after I took the shot above that I realized the pre-drilled tab attachment approach wouldn’t work. The tabs get in the way of the headliner tracks, which need to butt perfectly up against the box. So I cut the tabs off and tried something else.

1/2″ plywood attached to a cleat follows the ceiling frame curve

That’s not going to work, either. The leading edge of the plywood that the helm radio box attaches to needs to attach to cleats on the next aft frame.

This might work, but I need to use wider plywood pieces

BINGO!

Bolts locked onto the plywood with recessed nuts will go through the helm box plywood, with nuts to hold it in place

Cutting tweeter holes

That’ll work!

There’s reasonable access to the securing nuts through the back access panel and the radio cutouts. And by “reasonable,” I mean you only need 1.2 elbow joints and 1.4 wrist joints (per arm) to reach them once the radios are actually installed. That’s a lot better than your typical OEM installation where there simply is no access to these sorts of things. Mine just takes a bit of yoga master flexibility to get to ’em.

The marine radio just clears the headliner track

So, the mounting system works, and the base of the box is at the perfect height for the headliner. Next I removed the box and started organizing the wiring and attaching some electronic bits.

Next I mounted the fixed electronics

Pioneer Class D GM-D1004 amp gives plenty of BOOM for the helm station

I really like these amps. I don’t need to rattle windows a mile away, but these give a nice little boost above the stereo by itself. I’m using the same one for the salon stereo.

The little silver cylinder behind the amp is a temperature sensor

The temp sensor is connected to this 12vdc controller for the vent fan

There will be a marine radio, stereo, and the Pioneer amp in the helm overhead box, for a combined ~150 watts, which can really add to the temps this radio box will see during summer. To keep temps down, I’m using the controller in the picture above to kick on a vent fan when the temperature at the sensor hits 105°F.

Infinity Reference 375TX tweeter crossover

12v to 12v converter

The fan controller runs on 12vdc and has an upper limit of 12.5v. Since boat batteries can run as high as 14.4v (and 17v when equalizing batteries), I’m using this in-line converter to keep the volts in the happy range for the fan controller.

Before installing the fan controller and voltage converter, I coated the boards and components (except for the heat sinks) with a bit of epoxy.  Not enough to hold in heat, but enough to seal everything up and keep corrosion at bay.

Lotsa strippin’ and crimpin’ going on

Getting close…

The helm radio box works!

Those Infinity Kappa and Reference speakers sound very good.

Brand-new 5-year old radio gear in a pretty mahogany box

Fun fact: this project has lasted long enough that the brand new radios I bought for it years ago have obsolete features! I don’t know if you can even buy CDs anymore, but my stereo can play all of mine! After blasting out some Lynyrd Skynyrd to ensure the sound system is sufficient for my needs, I took the helm radio box down and started making more holes in it.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Station Radio Box III