1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Installing the OEM lights On The Aft Deck

It is such a pleasure coming up the ladder to the aft deck and NOT seeing ceiling frames or insulation. That Whisper Wall headliner makes a YUGE difference not just in the appearance of the aft deck…it’s good for the soul. The IMTRA LEDs and Infinity Kappa speakers are very nice, too, but I still need to wrap up the OEM light fixture upgrade and install.

I’ve  been trying out different kinds of LED lighting, from the stick-on strip lights you can buy on Amazon that I used for engine room lighting, to 12v ‘corn’ LED lights on ebay to replace incandescent bulbs in OEM fixtures in the salon. What I learned from my ‘temporary’ knockabout boat, a 1968 Chris Craft Commander 42, is that the corn lights cannot tolerate heat. The OEM fixtures on our Commander are open-ended on the bottom, but there’s no way for built up heat to escape from the top. So they cook. Which is fine for glass and metal incandescents, but these LED corn lights are in plastic frames that melt and twist and eventually fail long before their claimed service life is up.

So…if you upgrade to corn bulbs in your OEM fixtures, make sure there’s a chimney hole or two…or more…for the heat to escape.

Ventilated OEM Chris Craft light fixture

I stewed for ages over how I’d protect what I thought was chromed steel if I drill vent holes in the reflector. This is a boat, and rusted steel doesn’t reflect light quite as well as shiny metal does. Imagine how surprised I was to find out that they’re just stamped aluminum.

With the corn bulb in place, you can’t see the holes…not that that matters

Oh, and the missing section of OEM cork gasket…that’s the air intake. I didn’t plan it that way, but from a physics perspective if there’s a chimney vent for heat there has to be an inlet for the cooling effect to work efficiently. Also, for these fixtures, 10w corn bulb LEDs are as bright as you can go. the 12w and 15w units are brighter, but they’re too wide and stop the glass and stainless trim ring from closing.

Upgraded OEM light fixture installed at the helm station

I like it!

The aft switch is for the IMTRA LEDs.

This is making me very happy!

Now for the aft-most OEM light fixture to fill that last hole

This fixture was in slightly rougher shape, so it got the full Collinite 810 treatment

The ‘air intake’ gasket gap on this one is slightly larger

Think of it as better cooling…like an intercooler for an ultra high-tech LED light upgrade…not as a brittle, busted up cork gasket.

Ready for showtime!

NICE!

That wraps up almost all of the aft deck headliner work. The only thing left is installing the One-Mile Ray searchlight controls, but that can happen much later. But I still have some mahogany panel work on the aft deck that has to happen if the plywood stack is ever going away. When the plywood stack is gone, the project should be done.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Station Side Cabinets