1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Engine Wiring III

Well, it’s getting hot in the tent again, so I’ve been spending more time than I’d like making hatches and vents. Cutting holes in shrink wrap is easy, but each opening weakens the skin unless it’s secured by battens to some sort of framing. When I’m not ventilating the tent, I’ve been working on getting the engine wiring done. The battery cables are mostly installed, and I’m getting close to having the Cummins OE wiring interfaced with the OE Chris Craft wiring.

New hinged tent vent opens to catch southerly breezes

The new vent helps, but I’ve got to open up the top of the tent somehow. Heat rises, and it’s still scorching up above the deck level. Meanwhile, down in the engine room…

Somebody’s been in the port engine starter/alternator loom before

On the port engine, the starter loom isn’t neatly run between the starter and block. The untrimmed zip tie secures the loom to the turbo oil return line, which is fine, but I’ll repeat what I did on the starboard engine wiring and replace the original Cummins alternator wire with a much heavier #6AWG wire, re-routed to accommodate the OE Chris Craft ammeter shunt.

New 6AWG +12v cable from the alternator

Ready to install

That’s a proper wire for a 100+ amp output alternator

Stuffing the fatter loom behind the starter and down to the aux. starter solenoid took a bit of work

But it’s a much cleaner installation

Alternator wire trimmed to fit the shunt, then new wire up to the starter + terminal

Interfacing the Chris Craft and Cummins wiring

The #8AWG red Chris Craft wire on the left supplies power to the port 12v breaker panel, which is now connected to the battery terminal on the starter and the Cummins alternator via the the Chris Craft shunt. The green Chris Craft starter wire is connected to the 12v+ side of the aux. starter solenoid. I’ve been thinking for a while that I’d like to install a neutral safety switch. I’ve never started a boat that was in gear, but I’ve been on one where that happened and there’s nothing quite like a 900hp boat trying to take off while still attached to the dock! Neutral safety switches are a good upgrade. It looks like the Cummins loom uses switched ground for neutral safety, which will work well with the Chris Craft wiring.

Chris Craft shunt wiring is attached and trimmed zip ties secure all of the wiring

There was less “extra” shunt wiring on the port side; a couple of loops  take up the excess

On the starboard side, I put glued shrink tube on all terminals and attached the negative battery cable to the block

That pretty much wraps up the Chris Craft side of the wiring. Next I need to dig into the Cummins looms and clip wires to size, come up with neutral safety switches, and then install the Chris Craft oil and water temp senders and alarms on the Cummins blocks.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Engine Wiring IV

1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Engine Wiring II

Well, the bad news for 2016 has officially arrived with the death of my father-in-law. 90 years is a good, long run, but my wife had just returned from a six-week family visit three weeks ago when we got the news. So I got her back on a plane and am in bachelor mode once again until mid-July when I’ll fly out to participate in the final burial ceremony. Of course, it’s a very sad thing to lose a relative, and bachelor mode has both up- and down-sides for this refit project as well as for other aspects of life. My wife is terrific and has, at times, been very helpful and hands-on in this refit, but the clothes don’t get washed and folded by themselves, nor does dinner magically appear on the table every night. So when she’s away visiting family, the load she carries in keeping our household going falls to me. I have to squeeze time for cooking, laundry, etc into an already-packed schedule. The long drives to the boatyard and back give plenty of time to reflect on her father’s life and other family matters, but I find it’s harder to focus on refit problem-solving. Fortunately, sitting in the cool bilge on hot days next to two tons of cool Cummins engines while doing the wiring tends to bring me back into focus.

Cheapo hydraulic crimper does a surprisingly good job on 4/0 cables

I’ve used high end manual crimpers to make battery cables before, but I have to say these cheapo hydraulic ones on ebay do a fine job, especially for $31 shipping included.

Good crimp

Red colored shrink tubing identifies the positive cable

Good glue squeeze out after I applied heat

Ditto for the negative side

Next, I clipped and put new ends on the OE Chris Craft engine wires

The OE Chris Craft +12v supply line from the engine to the breaker panels uses 8AWG wire. All the rest–ignition, starter, water temp, oil pressure, and alarms are 10~14AWG.

The alternator and water temp sender wiring loom is tucked up neatly behind the coolant filter

If you look closely at the alternator, you can see a rather small, 12AWG wire that’s connected to the 12v+ output post, which is a tiny little wire for engines that have ~100a output alternators and air heaters that put a large load on the alternators at start-up.

Starter wiring disconnected from the alternator and the aux. starter solenoid

I have learned to hate all the white paint sprayed on the wire looms and wiring. What good is it to number all the wires if you’re just going to coat them with white paint??? And when you touch the painted split loom or move the wires around, it falls off in chunks…sort of. It’s very messy stuff.

New 6AWG +12v cable from the alternator

Cheapo crimper does 6AWG as well as it does 4/0

New 6AWG cable fits back in the alternator/H2O temp loom

Packing all the wiring back into the split loom

Because Chris Craft used ammeters with shunts instead of voltmeters, I need to reroute the alternator output cable past the battery cable terminal on the starter and have it first go through the shunt before returning to the starter. That will permit my OE ammeters to work properly at the helm, and when I eventually install Cummins panels in the engine room they’ll still get alternator output voltage from the starter battery post via the OE Cummins wiring.

But running that 6AWG wire to the shunt will be a challenge. The auxilliary starter solenoid wiring loom, which is what I’ll run the new 6AWG wire through, was installed behind the starter, and I suspect it was put in place before the starter was installed. It’s very neat and tidy doing it that way, but it’s also a lot tougher threading the loom back through that tight space between the starter and engine block than it was pulling it out. To get enough slack to make it fit, I ended up having to loosen up the loom all the way to the opposite side of the engine block.

New +12v alternator cable exits cleanly from behind the starter

New/old engine wiring interface terminal strip and shunt

New 6AWG wire from the shunt to the starter battery terminal

Shunt wires temporarily attached; black to the alternator side, white to the battery side

I’ve heard that the wire length is extremely critical for ammeters to accurately read the output from the shunts. So instead of cutting the wires I just looped and wire-tied them.

Wire ties clipped and the terminal cover installed

That gets the basic connections done on one engine, and now I know exactly what each wire in the Cummins loom does. But while I had my nose stuffed up against the engine block trying to pull the wires behind the starter, I noticed that somebody hadn’t been very careful installing hoses and clamps in this engine’s history.

Zero clearance between the starter and this heat exchanger hose and clamp

To fix that, I needed to loosen the heat exchanger and relocate it 1/4″ further back. When I went to loosen the heat exchanger clamp bolts, I found a very similar problem on the other end of the same hose. Fortunately, both problems were resolved by just moving the HEX aft a bit.

Another heat exchanger hose clamp with clearance issues

Better to find these kinds of problems and fix them now, I suppose.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Engine Wiring III

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Engine Wiring

I got the engines installed over the winter of 2015~16, but the exhaust, electrical, cooling, and fuel systems still need to be done. During a recent hot spell, I jumped into the engine room and got busy on the wiring. The biggest challenge will be figuring out how to get all of the original Chris Craft gauges, which use American standard inputs, to work with these Cummins 6CTA engines that use metric-scaled senders. The oil and water temp gauges should be easy enough: just install the Chris Craft senders. But since I will eventually install Cummins instrument panels in the engine room, the Cummins senders need to stay in place. The Chris Craft ammeter is a bit more complicated, since it gets its inputs from a shunt that was never used on these Cummins engines. In retrospect, I probably should have had the ammeters converted to volt meters back when I had the gauges refurbished, but it’s too late now. One way or another, I’ve got to get the engine electrical done if I’m going to splash later this year.

Cummins/Chris Craft wiring schematic

I used TinyCAD to make the schematic. There are online schematics for Cummins 6CTA marine engines, but none of them matched what I’ve got on mine. The Cummins schematics all show 2- and 3-wire alternators, but mine is a 1-wire unit. I also removed the air heaters, since they’re prone to trouble and the lads over at boatdiesel.com recommend getting rid of them. That simplifies the engine wiring quite a bit. Next, I need to make a base for the shunt and wiring harness interface terminals.

Starboard scraps will make a good base

Just the right size

Position parts, drill holes

Countersink the back-side

Disassemble and clean up the shunt

Somebody got sloppy with blue paint some time between 1969 and 1985, when the boat went on the hard and stayed there for decades. Fortunately, it comes off easily enough.

The shunt cleaned up pretty good

Shunt and terminal strip test fit

Sand the base edges smooth

Nicely radiused corners, but I’m not keen on the sharp edges

Bosche router rounds the edges nicely

 

Starboard leaves a fuzzy edge at the end of the cut zone

Fortunately, the fuzz comes off easily with a knife.

Harness interface panel is ready to install

The terminal strips I’m using were on the Super Seamaster twin turbo and intercooled 534ci Ford Super Duty engines that were in the boat when we found it on Purgatory Row in a southern Maryland boatyard in late 2007. I’ll eventually need to have new cover panels made. Brand new terminal strips would be OK, but I wanted to use OE and period-correct parts whenever possible.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Engine Wiring II

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Reinforcing the Exhaust Parts

I’m juggling many different things on the Roamer refit right now, but all of them are essential must-do items if I’m going to splash later this year. Getting the Cummins 6CTA Diamonds attached to the exhaust system, fuel lines, and raw water are three of those things. Some exhaust parts arrived a while back, so it’s time to reinforce the fiberglass tubes where the clamps squeeze the hose. Without reinforcement, the clamps can cause the fiberglass to crack.

400 hours on the turbos, which both look good inside

New exhaust anti-crush sleeves and clamps

First, use a grinder to rough up the exterior of the clamp sleeves

Next, a die grinder roughs up the inside of the exhaust tubes

High temp epoxy bonds the sleeve to the elbow

One down, one to go

Muffler will need crush sleeves, too

In the pic above, the muffler is sitting on a tray I made using scrap aluminum sheet from the aft deck enclosure and 6063 aluminum angle. Because I’m using Centek waterlift mufflers, I wanted to position the muffler as low as possible so the spill-over point from the muffler to the exhaust outlet is lower than the spill-over point of the dry portion of the exhaust riser. That will make the exhaust system inherently safe by making it virtually impossible for sea water to back up into the dry part of the exhaust. I’ll be welding that muffler tray in soon.

The stick shows the direction the exhaust hose will have to take to meet the riser

While the epoxy cures for the crush sleeves in the exhaust elbows and outlets, I’m wrapping up fitting the muffler trays. But there’s other stuff going on, too.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Relocating the Fuel Tank Fills

1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Reassembling the Aftercoolers

Winter 2016 is over in the Mid-Atlantic region (got my first mosquito bites of the season..three in a row on my buttocks!), butt…I haven’t gotten Zika or Dengue (yet), so I’m still thinking I can splash later this year. To that end, I’ve got a relatively short honey-do list: 1) seal up the boat, and 2) get the engines running. Within the short list, there are lots of individual things that make the more refined list much, much longer. I’ve got a challenging number of things that have to be done…challenging, but not impossible.

Aftercooler housings got coated with other Cummins parts

Recently rolled-on Devoe 235 Epoxy coating comes off easily with a razor

Degunked aftercooler core slides into the well-greased housing

Generic o-rings: $4.88, a small fraction of the Cummins $77 list price

I was surprised by how much Cummins prizes their o-rings: $35 for a set of two rubber o-rings, and two kits are required for twin-engine applications. The OE o-rings are 125mm x 4mm, so I spent two minutes on the ‘net locating a company selling bags of five o-rings for a whopping $4.88, including shipping…less than a buck apiece. Fortunately, they’re not classified by the government as hazardous material, so the price was very reasonable.

Well-lubricated copper end caps are ready for installation onto the aluminum aftercooler

Word has it there can never be too much grease when reassembling these aftercoolers, and I believe it. The aftercooler housing is aluminum, and everything else is copper, bronze, or galvanized steel, all in a place where condensation is guaranteed to happen. Grease and regular maintenance are the only way to avoid expensive repairs in the future…and I’m OK with that. I’m really looking forward to the time when maintenance is all I’ve got left to do on this boat.

More grease…just because.

Tefgel to keep the new shoulder bolts from getting too friendly with the aluminum

Installed and ready for zincs

One more check on the honey-do list

In other news, my new AHP TIG welder has arrived and I’m slowly accruing seat time figuring out how it all works. TIG is a very different process than the MIG welding I’m more familiar with, but this new AHP machine makes it a lot easier than the last time I tried gluing aluminum together using the TIG process…when I ended up melting the whole thing into a blob on the bench! High frequency start and run (for aluminum) and AC balance are truly things of beauty, and the weight difference between my old transformer-based Millermatic 35 and this new inverter-based AHP makes the prospect of doing onboard welding less of a dread-inducing prospect. But while I’m getting up to speed on the new TIG in my home garage, I’m also working on more honey-do items on the boat.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: The V-berth Head.

1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Installing Cleaned Up Cummins Parts

I’m still planning to splash the Roamer later this year, so getting critical parts prepped, painted, and installed is a priority.

Devoe 235 epoxy coating looks pretty good

ER steps and aftercoolers look much better painted

Ready to be welded in

I intentionally left the bottom tube on the ER steps partially bare to make it that much easier to weld them in. I’ll have a “welding day” pretty soon, since the new raw water intake standpipes have been sitting in a box since last year, the new muffler shelves are ready to install, and the fuel tank inlets need to be relocated.

Cummins cooling pipe looks much better

I’m not too keen on straight hose taking tight 90° turns

That pinch point in the lower hose is resolved with a Dayco 80412 molded hose

I found the molded hose for $6 and change at rockauto.com. That’s less than half of what they’re charging at the local outlet of national chain auto part stores, and by buying it there I deny the state it’s thieving sales tax…gotta celebrate the small victories.

No kink!

I’ll replace the hose on the right before adding coolant; straight hose works fine there without kinking

I think it looks lots better than before.

And that’s another check in the box on the honey-do list counting down to splashing in 2016.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Reassembling the Aftercoolers

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Turbocators!

In order to splash the boat in 2016, I need to make the exterior waterproof and get the engines operational. After making an expensive mistake(/valuable lesson) on a set of exhaust risers, I decided to make a custom set myself. I ordered all of the stainless tubing and the exhaust flanges, which have already arrived, but I’m still waiting for my new TIG welding machine to get here. I could have gotten a TIG gun, a pedal, and just used my Miller Trailblazer 280, but the Onan two-cylinder air-cooled engine in that beast is noisy. It’s fine for working in the yard, where there’s not enough power to weld thick aluminum. But I’ll be welding these risers on a bench in my garage, so a welding machine powered by a 220v wall outlet will be nice and quiet. I figure any excuse to buy a new welder is a good one. 🙂

While I’m waiting for the new machine to show up, I also ordered Isspro Turbocator gauges from Seaboard Marine. The Turbocator gauges indicate boost and exhaust temp, both of which are very useful in determining if a turbo-diesel boat is propped right. There isn’t room in the Roamer instrument panel to add more gauges, but I’ve got an idea that might be kind of cool.

Isspro Turbocator with 3″ stainless bezel

Shortly after the Turbocators were delivered, I learned about Westach boost and EGT combo gauges that also come in the 3″ bezel size.

I think the Westach gauges look more era-appropriate

That Westach gauge is more attractive than the Isspro ones I bought, I think, but there’s no going back now. The 3″ diameter is crucial for the plan I’m kicking around.

Original Chris Craft gauges on my Roamer, rechromed, installed, and coated with wax

A 3″ bezel gauge will fit inside the chromed bezels used on Chris Craft gauges.

Ratty gauges bought on ebay might look good with Turbocators installed

Or maybe bigger-diameter tachometer bezels would be the way to go

I’m leaning toward retrofitting the Turbocators to the smaller Chris Craft gauge bezels and housings. Then I’ll use foam to model a housing for both that would fit between and take styling cues from the two original tachometer pods on the boat. I’d fiberglass the exterior of the foam model and paint the Turbocator pod to match the tachometers.

Something kinda like this, but twinned together

Well, that’s the plan. I’ve got all the parts now, I just need to get busy with the foam and fiberglass. But since this isn’t exactly mission critical, I’m going to keep pondering how to pull it off while I keep working on other things.

Next up on our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer Refit: Cleaning Up Cummins Parts

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: New Exhaust Risers

The original Cummins exhaust risers that came with my Cummins 6CTAs take a 90° turn after exiting the turbo, but there is no way to safely point the exhaust toward toward my waterlift mufflers. The turbo would end up being on the low side of the system, and that’s bad news for wet marine exhaust–you don’t want water flowing back into the turbo and engine. So two years ago, I checked with several marine exhaust manufacturers about having custom exhaust risers made, with the dry section going as high in the engine room as possible before turning down with the showerhead pointing toward the waterlift mufflers. The estimates that came back were quite high–they averaged $5300 for both sides. So I held off on ordering a set until they were absolutely necessary. Well…we’ve reached that point now.

Oh, and those original, low hour Cummins risers are listed on my  For Sale page.

While I was waiting, I found some brand new DeAngelo hard shell marine exhausts on ebay. They were advertized as being made for Cummins 8.3 engines, which is what I’ve got, and the price was right. So for the last two years I’ve toyed around with the idea of buying those and modifying them to fit my application. Over the holidays, a friendly commenter mentioned the ones on ebay, so I pulled the trigger and bought them. The thing is, while I’d been aware of them for two years and thought about how I’d modify them, I never really investigated the parts themselves. Turns out that was an expensive lesson in why it’s important not to make rash decisions just because somebody double-dog dares you.

The box took a bit of a beating

Hard shell insulation coating is cracked and the turbo flange is bent

While it was unfortunate that one of the risers arrived damaged, I wasn’t really concerned about the hard shell being damaged since I would have to cut it off to modify the riser anyway. The flange was a bigger concern. I contacted the ebay seller and let him know about the damage on the one riser.

But the biggest problem of all was that on both risers the showerhead and raw water inlets were too big. The original Cummins risers for these engines have a 6″ diameter outlet, and the raw water inlet is 1-1/2″. These risers had an 8″ outlet and a 2″ water inlet. Without thinking it through very much, I figured I could just use a reducer between the showerhead and the muffler. So while the return was being processed on the damaged riser, I got to work dismantling the good one.

Good looking riser, but it’s too big

Like removing a cast after a broken bone has mended

Hard shell insulation removed

Intuitively, I like the fact that these risers quickly increase in diameter after leaving the turbo. It steps from 3-1/2″ at the flange to 4″, then immediately up to 4-1/2″ where it enters the insulated zone and then up to 5″. After the 5″ 45° turn, it goes up to 6″ the rest of the way. It makes a very complicated part, but that big pipe must be good for lowering back pressure. Since my port riser will be longer and have more bends than the starboard, I was thinking that maybe the fat pipe will compensate for the additional back pressure.

Cut-off wheel sliced through a welded joint where the 6″ pipe begins

Inside the pipe looks good

The whole time I was dismantling the riser, I was focused on the task and not really thinking about next steps. After I had it cut up, I started looking into the parts it would take to make this riser work. It turns out there are reducers, but they’re somewhat expensive. Then I remembered I’d have to buy two stainless anti-crush rings that go inside the fiberglass reducers. Then I’d still have to buy the materials to modify the riser and pay somebody to weld them up. I’ve had bad luck with fabricators in this area, so there’s that, too. I was looking at no less than $600 more to make each riser which, when added to the purchase price, is getting close to the cost of just having a set of risers custom made.

It was around this time that I really started kicking myself for buying these risers. The ebay ad was misleading, but I should have contacted the seller to verify the dimensions. When I realized they were too big, I should have just sent them both back. But then, with my new-found understanding of how these risers are made, I started thinking about just buying all of the materials and making a set myself…

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: New Riser Materials

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Servicing the Aftercoolers

The Cummins 6CTA engines in my Roamer are aftercooled turbo diesels. The aftercooler housing is cast aluminum, but the core is made of bronze. Since raw water runs through the core, these aftercoolers are notorious for the sort of corrosion problems you’d expect from dissimilar metals in saltwater. Making matters worse, Cummins apparently assembles the aftercoolers dry, with no grease, Tefgel, or anything else to lubricate the joint, isolate the metals, and make disassembly easy. These engines only have 400 hours on them, but they came from New York and ran in saltwater. There’s just a bit of the green verdigris around the lower aftercooler end cap, which is telling me it’s time for service. The diesel gurus at boatdiesel say the aftercoolers should be serviced every two years, and I’ll be following Tony Athens’ method.

Aluminum + bronze + saltwater = a few minor problems

After I popped the top off the aftercooler, I found a bit of aluminum and copper oxide outside the o-ring seal. This tells me there was a slight leak at the o-ring. I’m glad I decided to tear into this.

Green powder = evidence of an o-ring leak on the bottom, too

Bad hardware choice…add steel to the mix of metals

The hex bolts holding the ends on the aftercooler are standard sized. Unfortunately, that brings the edges of the hex heads so close to the bronze castings that a socket won’t fit. This isn’t a good scenario for an aftercooler that was leaking saltwater.

Bolts came out without snapping

I need to order new galvanized shoulder bolts for when I reassemble this. And they’ll get slathered with Tefgel when this goes back together.

Salt plugs one tube

Salt cleaned up pretty good

Light at the end of the tunnel?

The core tubes are clear now, so water flow won’t be restricted anymore.

Second aftercooler has similar issues with the o-ring on the top end

Cleans up pretty good though.

The water side of the aftercooler cleaned up pretty well, but the air side is still a question. Because the bronze cores were installed dry into the aluminum housings, I couldn’t convince them to come out. So I brought both aftercoolers down to the house, stood them up on end, and poured some automatic transmission fluid into the air side. Two days later, ATF started dripping out of one and a week later it started dripping out of the other. I flipped the housings over and repeated the process. Finally, after two weeks, some heat from a MAPP torch, and occasional encouragement from a 3# sledge hammer tapping on a block of wood laying across the top of the core, first one then the other core came out.

The core is not too bad

Needs a good soaking and clean up

Fortunately, the fins all look good and the corrosion on the ends was minor.

Sloppy solder work in one spot, but that shouldn’t affect the aftercooler

I’m soaking both cores in degreaser now and will clean them up over the weekend, then I’ll reassemble next week. In the meantime, the window shop finally sent replacement trim rings for my helm station windshield. Adding to the potential drama, a blizzard is forecast for the area tomorrow and Saturday, with 50mph gusts and no less than 12″ of snow predicted. We’ll see how Tent Model XXX holds up.

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Mid-Atlantic Blizzard 2016

1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Removing Unnecessary Cummins Parts

I got my Cummins 6CTAs installed over summer 2015 and need to wrap up the installation so I can splash the boat and bring it closer to home in 2016. One of the things I need to do is service the aftercoolers, and while I have them off I decided to eliminate some unnecessary electrical components–the intake air heater system and a noise suppressor that looks like it was installed as an afterthought.

A lot of the spaghetti in this pic comes from the air heaters

The air heater solenoids and CPU

Cummins engines don’t need the air heater to start. All they do is cut down on white smoke on cold starts. I installed 400w Moroso oil pan heaters when I put the engines in, so the air heaters have become a not very useful option. According to the gurus at boatdiesel.com, the air heaters are more trouble than they’re worth. Many work just fine, but a lot of them end up killing the alternator, and they can draw down battery voltage to the point that accessories stop working. There are some workarounds for those problems, but there’s another consideration in my install: in the pic above, you can see that the lower left solenoid is unbolted from its mounting plate and hanging there at an angle. I did that because otherwise the solenoid hits the stringer. You can also see that the electric terminals on the right-side solenoid are extremely close to my stringers, which are made of aluminum. By the size of the cables, it’s safe to assume that a lot of current can run through here. I don’t like having that much power that close to the conductive stringers. But I also didn’t want to cut the stringer to make clearance, and rearranging the solenoids or relocating the plate would take time. Given the recommendations over at boatdiesel.com, I’d rather just remove them and be done with it.

Remove bolts that attach the power cables to the grid heater

Remove cable from starter positive terminal

Track down wires that don’t connect to anything essential

Track down more wires that don’t connect to anything, and one that connects to the bellhousing tach sender

Air heater system fuse

Adding wires here that connect to a switch at the helm can give manual control to people who want to keep their heaters.

Carefully extract the wires from the loom, and out it comes

Ah HAAA! A solenoid in the process of failing

The hole that’s been burned through the plastic housing of this solenoid was on the under-side…never would have seen it without removing the whole thing. This is the kind of stuff the guys at boatdiesel warn about. Good riddance, I say.

Noise suppressor (the little box with the wires going to it) comes off the alternator next

Useless electrical gear removed from both engines

Much less spaghetti

Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Servicing the Aftercoolers