My '87 DV18 thread...

[Big Block Power]

Darn thieves. Glad you caught it. I get notified on every purchase. If you let the smoke out of those wires you will find out it's a bitch to get the smoke back in them.

[CobaltRick]

I'll take that as an "insulate" or do lots of rework!

[Big Block Power]

I'll take that as an "insulate" or do lots of rework!

Yep

[akorcovelos]

ok.. I'm on hold for buying anything online.. Doh! I had someone making odd charges at a Best Buy store in Richfield, MN early this morning.. My card has been shutdown. Doh! I'd rather have that than allowing $2500 to go through..

Anyway, my question for today is what are these wires for in the throttle/drive controller?

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IF I plug in the battery for the boat (its currently on the floor of the garage), will these touching each other cook anything? I'm guessing IF I'm going to apply power I should insulate these wires until the new control is installed. I'm assuming at least a pair of these wires is for the drive lift..

Here you go:

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[CobaltRick]

Thanks!! I hope, when the time comes to install the new control, that its fairly easy to get the wiring correct without doing something wrong. I’ll have to look at the wires I’ve got — some of which appear to follow the color code in the above diagram but others are a bit murky to me as I’m a bit colorblind in the greens.. Doh! Anyway, I received my red lights today from eBay.. I kinda wish I had splurged for some slightly better ones. I’m sure that they’ll work fine but they’re very ... well.. plastic. They feel almost weightless. Anyway, I just need to scrounge up some 12v (or one anyway) outlet and the rest of the stuff is coming on Thursday.. Then I can start putting things back together little by little — yes, I’ll post pics.

[CobaltRick]

Ok.. so here’s the eBay light compared to the original Attwood..

I’ll admit that the power required to run this light is likely much less than the old incandescent fixture.. I guess because of that, the wires on the Chinese led eBay light is rather .. well.. light weight. They are silicone insulated which is a plus. I should note that these lights have no apparent louvre or anything to direct light downward when installed.. I gave them some voltage from the boat battery and they work fine but the light appears to be everywhere I guess.

They will fit the need I believe just fine..

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Now I’m off to find a replacement connector to wire up so it’ll be a plug-n-play operation..

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[CobaltRick]

Another stupid question.. I was checking the local Craigslist edition to see if any Cobalts were listed and found an ‘87 like mine but a BR instead of a DV.

My question is — there was a picture on this 18BR that has a cushion on top of the dog-house and mine just has a very thin piece of teak plywood that is slowly disintegrating. Was there originally a cushion there as in the attached photo? I guess it doesn’t matter — I’ll probably put a cushion there at some point. I’m thankful to know these little details that were apparently missing when I bought the boat.

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[akorcovelos]

That’s a sweet looking aft end. The cushion looks awesome in a period correct way.

[CobaltRick]

That’s a sweet looking aft end. The cushion looks awesome in a period correct way.

I agree and had never even considered that a cushion might go there! My only question is how to keep it from flying when at speed..? Maybe a few pieces of Velcro?

[Big Block Power]

That’s a sweet looking aft end. The cushion looks awesome in a period correct way.

I agree and had never even considered that a cushion might go there! My only question is how to keep it from flying when at speed..? Maybe a few pieces of Velcro?

I'm sure it's screwed in from the bottom side. Velcro won't hold that while driving.

[CobaltRick]

Hmm.. perhaps I’ll remove the existing plywood base and examine it more closely... it should be an easy change once my spare vinyl arrives... whenever that is

[akorcovelos]

My buddies old Bayliner had a cushion like that and it was held down with snaps he had to remove it to lift the dog house.

[CobaltRick]

Ok.. I figured I’d plug in the battery for a bit and ferret out the bulb polarity as the wires were NOT obvious (black & gray).. I had a hunch that the black was negative and that seems to be the case. However, I wired up the 12v outlet and am not getting any power to it but I am to the other two outlets in the boat (dash and port-aft side)... It’s not a grounding issue as I’ve got a good ground for the plug-in light. I guess I’ll have to figure out how it’s wired back to the dash or whatever. I guess I missed be taking apart the dash.. doh!!

Speaking of the dash, the reset buttons (small white buttons next to the switches), are they supposed to feel like they’re doing nothing when pressed?

On a different note, I did turn the ignition on and let the meter settle and the tach is now reading zero at power-off.. I guess it was probably reading the last reading before power-off which in my case was last time it was running in my driveway.

[CobaltRick]

Any wisdom on dash removal..? This is definitely uncharted territory for me obviously and I’ve removed the screws on the left, right and top of the dash without issue but am wondering about the steering wheel assy and whether that’s messing with me as I’ve got no idea how that works. What I do see is a bundle of wires in the cavity to the right of the dash and I’m trying to track down a red wire with white stripe which is leading in there somewhere. Doh! I’ve also got to replace the 12v outlet there as its horribly rusty though working.. and am, I guess wondering IF I’m going to disassemble things here what I should consider replacing — such as the circuit breakers or switches,Meters, etc.? I’m thinking of ditching the clock as it’s kinda unnecessary at this point as I’ll never use it. Thoughts?

I’m gonna poke around and see if I can figure out how to remove this thing some more..

[akorcovelos]

Speaking of the dash, the reset buttons (small white buttons next to the switches), are they supposed to feel like they’re doing nothing when pressed?

yes, if they pop they will click back in.

Did you remove the teak trim on the sides of the cluster? Looks from your pics like they overlap the panel.

Here's the overall dash cluster..


Here's the switch cluster for the left side..


And the right side..