Before we can install the headliner on the aft deck, I need to get all of the wiring done in the hardtop. I want to put the marine radio, stereo, and fuel gauge in a mahogany box that I’ll attach to the helm ceiling. That means installing speaker and fuel tank sender wires, and running 12vdc supply and antenna wires from their various starting locations to the ceiling over the dashboard. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s a critical step toward getting this project done.
I want to put a mahogany box up here for the radios, fuel gauges, etc
New wire looms clean up the OEM wiring
There will be three stereos on the boat: one in the V-berth, one in the salon, and the last one up at the helm station. I will have one antenna serving all three, so I had to string coaxial antenna cable between all of them. If you ever wondered how much antenna cable you need for a 46′ Chris Craft, the answer is about 80 feet. Fortunately, I picked up a 100′ roll of RG62 cable from ebay. I’d never seen RG62, but the specs for it matched the cables that come on the Shakespeare Galaxy antenna that’s on the way.
Antenna wiring for the helm station starts in the v-berth
From the V-berth “desk-like structure,” the cable enters the PVC pipe wire chase I put in the bilge
After pulling the cable through the engine room wire chases, I had 30′ of it coiled up in the salon. The main wiring chase going from the engine room to the helm runs up the salon aft bulkhead, but it ends at the dashboard. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking about antenna cables or anything other than OEM helm wiring when we fiberglassed and painted the aft stateroom head. It would have been much easier to install this stuff before the aft head ceiling got installed. Ah well….what’s done is done.
Because I will put the radios in an overhead box at the helm, I need to use a fish tape to pull the cable from the salon wire chase through the aft head ceiling.
Fish tape at the salon wiring chase
The only way to pull the cable through to the outboard side of the aft head ceiling is to first pull a wire from the outboard side of the aft head ceiling, then use that wire to pull the antenna cable.
Fish tape made it into the aft head
Wire secured to the fish tape
Wire pulled through to the salon wiring chase
Skinny wire taped to the antenna coax cable
After pulling the coil of cable through to the aft head, I went up to the aft deck and repeated the process.
Fish tape the wire from the aft head to the aft deck
That hole in the teak deck is original to the boat. It’ll be hidden by cabinetry when I’m all done.
Pull the coax cable from the aft head to the aft deck
Next run the antenna cable up to the helm ceiling
Install the cable splitters
A 20-pack of chromed brass coax cable ends sell on ebay for $14, and they come in a kit that includes the stripping and crimping tools…quite the bargain. I used marine-grade shrink tubing with adhesive just to ensure I’d never have to do this job again.
With the antenna coax cables and splitters between the radios installed, next I ran the 12v supply line for the radios and the wiring for the fuel gauge using the same fish tape approach. It was a tedious day, but the job’s done.
New searchlight wire spliced in
Like most of the wiring on the boat, the OEM stuff is in surprisingly good shape. But the One-Mile Ray searchlight wiring was very brittle where it passed through the aft deck hardtop. For reasons I can’t fathom, Chris craft ran 12 gauge wire for it all the way up to the helm ceiling, then transitioned to 14 gauge. It was the lighter gauge wiring that cooked, so I cut it off and went 12 gauge all the way. More on that later.
Speaker and fuel gauge wiring is installed
I admit, this isn’t the most exciting article I’ve posted. But it was such a massive pain in the butt fishing those cables and wires into place I felt it deserved a write-up. On the up-side, I’m glad I left chases all the way from the V-berth to the helm so I didn’t have to undo anything to get the wiring done. That said, my next post will be much more impressive. I’m talkin’ serious mahogany porn.
Next up in our 1969 Chris Craft Roamer 46 Refit: Helm Station Radio Box
1969chriscraftroamer46 