New Gauge Cluster Bezels and Switches

[cole1]

Very easy... went to Lowes and bout a piece of lexan and traced the old out cut with jigsaw and wrapped in carbon fiber wrap material. Cost $30 and a few hours!!! The switches were the expensive part, but necessary to get rid of all the unneeded pushbuttons...
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[Okie Boarder]

That turned out nice...cool idea.

[wotan2525]

Looks good. The only small suggestion I would have would be to use pan-head screws instead of those countersunk ones. Would make it look just that much cleaner.

[Jetlink]

Out of curiosity, where did you relocate the circuit breakers to?

[cole1]

I almost did the panheads but I went with these to match the driver floor pan screws... I relocated the circuit breakers to the trash can!

[jet]

Nice work man! On my list to do now fo sho'. Since the circuit breakers went in the trash (that made me laugh) does that mean that nothing is fused now?? And Im sure getting rid of all of those red circle lights got rid of 50% of the wiring too. Correct? I really want to clean up that birds nest behind the speedos. Last question. Did you buy lexan and then stick the carbon to it? Or did you buy it that way? And where did you get the carbon stickers from?? Nice job man. I like it! Jet#1

[Jetlink]

I almost did the panheads but I went with these to match the driver floor pan screws... I relocated the circuit breakers to the trash can!So, does that mean that you do not have any protection in the electrical system against a short? You might want to reconsider that as nothing will ruin your day faster than the whole boat going dead due to a short somewhere in the system.

[cole1]

I wanted to at least be on the safe side so I ran inline fuses from the power side to each component... Not too big of a deal there but wanted to make sure I didn't have a melt down. Yes getting rid of those lights made it a lot better! It is a birds nest because everything is piggy backed and connected... I just bought the Lexan in about a 3 ft sheet in clear and bought a remnant of carbon fiber vinyl wrap material from a local vinyl sign/vehicle wrap shop. I cut the surround and switch holes with a jigsaw and the gauge holes with a hole saw. Then I took the electric sander and hit the face and edges to get everything roughed up and the corners rounded. Last, I stuck the vinyl to it and trimmed the holes and edges with a razor. I picked the wrap material because it has UV protectant to keep it from fading out like regular vinyl would. My panels were all cracked at the screw holes and half of the lights didn't work and the circuit breakers were the typical 20 year old hanging on for dear life OEM pieces that are way over priced... The Carling switches are available on Ebay for a few bucks each... Vs. $20 per circuit breaker the cheapest I found for the originals. I think the Key of the entire thing is making sure all of the wiring is in good shape... if its questionable just replace it with a new piece of wire and new connectors. I was happy when I got it all back together and everything worked like it should. I ran one switch for both blowers, one for the bilge even though it had to swiches originally?, one for the radio, one for ignition, one for Nav lights, one for Anc light( because I wanted to be able to just turn on the pole light), and one for the Interior/courtesy lights. I got rid of the cig lighter button, OP power?, ACC?, and the extra horn button? The reason these have ? is because I couldn't figure out what if anything they were connected to...

[cole1]

I thought about that... and thats why I went with the inline fuses. I should have elaborated when I said went to the trash. lol But it was a happy day putting those pieces of crap in the trash! lol. Also, I ran the fuses on the hot to each individual component, ex. blower, bilge, radio, etc. and labeled each. I also put one coming from the hot on the Ignition to be on the safe side... The old circuit breakers were all labeled 20amp so thats what I went with. They should pop before any wire melting occurs... I hope ;)

[Jetlink]

Sounds good man, I just worry when people redo wiring and eliminate the circuit breakers all together on a boat. Mine came that way, no circuit breakers or fuses on what should be the main breaker, the blower or the bilge. On top of that, the bilge had three butt splices that were not insulated just laying in the bilge area.

[cole1]

People do some dumb stuff! I insulated and wire tied all of my wires in the bilge area to keep them dry! What did you end up doing with yours?

[Jetlink]

People do some dumb stuff! I insulated and wire tied all of my wires in the bilge area to keep them dry! What did you end up doing with yours?Ran all new wires from bow to stern, rewired the instrument cluster, made new panels as they had made the holes bigger to allow for switches in place of switch breakers, new gauges, all new switch breakers, the list goes on from there but in a nut shell, it's all new wiring on the boat that I ran without taking the cap off, took two days to accomplish.

[cole1]

My hat is off to you brother... WOW!

[sybrmike]

Great job on the new panels - I made new ones as well, so I appreciate the work you put in to make it happen. The carbon facing looks cool & hope it holds up for you.

Mine ended up a little cluttered with all the rockers and breakers, so I sure like the way you opened up space using fuses.

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[cole1]

Thanks sybrmike! Yours looks awesome too! I wanted to do new guages at the same time but I just couldn't spend the money yet. I think I see some trim tab controls on yours? Very cool!