Vesper

I installed the regulator, the new alternator, battery cables, charging wires, fuse for the alternator positive.  Wired the bilge pump.  Plumbed the coolant overflow tank.  Hooked up the fuel lines.  The engine compartment is pretty close to being able to be buttoned up.  I still need to tighten the fitting at the fuel pump and the alternator alignment is off and it’s off because the mount is holding the alternator too far forward.  It couldn’t be the easy fix, where it’s too far back and I can just shim it.  Of course not.  It’s $60 bucks for a facing tool to cut that back about 1/8″ so it aligns right.  So I’ll have one if anyone else has the same problem and wants to borrow it.  Otherwise, it’s looking pretty good.

Just another pic of the cabinets all installed but now all the trim is there and the hasps that hold the top step on are installed.  I realized after I got these all installed that I still need to run the hookups for the through-hull sensors so I’ll have to remove at least one piece of trim to snake that through.  I should have done all the wiring before I put the interior back in.

Battery charger is in power supply mode and providing power for the boat so I can check everything. Everything that should work works.

Red map light at the nav station.

I added an engine room LED light aft to light up the nether regions for adjusting the packing gland and whatnot.  Really bright, $15 at West Marine.

I added one circuit when this was done and had to redo all those zip ties on the right.  But it was worth it for the engine room lamp.

Instruments on and working properly.  The light on the compass is a little janky, I’ll have to revisit that at some point.

Stuck inside on a snowy day so I thought I’d upload a couple of pics. This is the original 12v panel the boat came with. The little bar over on the right is the original negative bus, a hunk of bronze. The plastic blog is the terminal block. Set screws hold the wires in. They’re all badly corroded.

The new panel is obviously more robust with charge monitoring, AC panel, USB and lighter-plug sockets, and more granular control over circuits.  I’m not sure what state of the art for Swedish boats was 39 years ago but I feel like the new incarnation is pretty good.

The counter is installed which makes a ton of other stuff able to be installed.  The cabinet above the engine and the engine cover as well as the sink.  I need to get some handles on the doors for that cabinet before I can screw it down but it’s coming together.  That green piece of G10 is to cover the inside of the old through-hull hole.  I still have to fill the outside but I’ve taken to epoxying ‘caps’ on the inside so I know where to stop grinding and to cover it so I can vacuum bag the repair.

On my previous post I had installed the negative bus bars and linked them to the main bus bar with 10 awg wire.  After consideration I didn’t like that so I redid them with 4 awg to avoid issues with current capacity.  Technically the 10 would work but if I had an overcurrent condition with multiple breakers the fuse at the other end of those big feeders wouldn’t have blown before the 10 awg wire would have been in flames.  Now if there’s an overcurrent condition the breakers should catch it, and if not, the big fuse at the other end will.

I wish it were a bit neater but small boat and limited space means I do the best I can.

I’ve been working on the wiring, it’s slow going.  I have to wait for 50 degree days to glue on WeldMount studs (so worth it, best things for this kind of work!) and then they have to cure, and then I wait for another 50 degree day to do some more work.  Luckily I had a couple in a row.  This first picture is looking up from the quarter berth.  The black box is the Aqualarm Bilge Monitor.  Directly overhead is the ProMariner Galvanic Isolator.  You can’t really see it but above that is a SmartPlug 30Amp inlet.   After reading the excellent write up from MaineSail I didn’t want to go with an old school inlet and burn down my boat after all this hard work.  There are some unsecured wires in this pic, don’t worry, they’ll be properly tied up later.  What you’re seeing to the left is the coaming box in the cockpit.  That curve is the cockpit starboard forward corner.

Here is the view looking into the quarter berth.  The bilge monitor is visible and the ProMariner 1220 Battery Charger.  Mounting that required some creative thinking.  I ended up cutting the vinyl hull liner out in a square spot and epoxying some marine ply there to screw it to.  It’s in a place where it won’t interfere with sleeping but visible and available.

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I’ve been doing a lot but it’s mostly invisible stuff like buying electrical system parts. After measuring tons of times I still wasn’t sure if the start battery would fit. Plenty of room!!

And my panel is more or less complete. I just need to wire it now.

More done today, finished getting the port side cabinet in, head exhaust fan wired up, 2 lights installed and wired, and the fascia board installed.  I just have a couple of trim pieces, headliners and the bow is done.

Here you can see a reading lamp I installed.  The original lamps lacked character.

Starboard side lamp here.

You can see the head vent hose exit inside the hanging locker.  I’ll get a wire restraint on that lamp wire tomorrow.

Head vent hose was hidden inside a locker.  It looks horrible in the aft locker because we had to peel some of the interior liner off to hunt down a leak, I’ll probably paint it so it doesn’t look so manky.  Can’t tell once it’s closed up.

Wires up top need another restraint.

I got the rest of the cabinet around the head finished.  There is an ugly exposed hinge but it’ll be under a cushion anyhow so I’m not real upset about it.  I also got the forward part of the bow cabinets in that covers up the chain locker and head vent.  Looking forward to finishing that up.  The second picture won’t rotate, but if you click it, it’s rotated.  No idea why.