anyone familiar with wiring on 1966 16' boat

[BobinCovington]

Just on a sidenote to my other thread about our 1966 Donzi 16 Ski Sporter...does anyone have experience with the wiring on boats in these early years?
My question is on how the wires go are loomed through to the engine compartment from the cockpit. I want to replace/rewire from the gauge panel and lights back to the battery/engine compartment. Is it a pain to feed new wires through without a top off restoration? I was thinking of putting in some type of plastic conduit to protect the new wires and make it easy to feed them through from under dash around the right side of the boat and into the engine compartment. But maybe it is too hard to get anything through..?
I'd like to hear from anyone who has done some of this.

[penbroke]

My '66 18 has the wires in a spiral wrap that is held with plastic straps screwed to the top of the starboard stringer. There are a couple of screws that will be hard to reach. I may have a wiring harness from a '65 or '66 16 kicking around...


Frank

[mattyboy]

as long as the bundle of wires is not tie wrapped in the middle
you can use the old wire as a pull if they are strong enough or you can use a fish tape/snake to fish thru the looms provided they are the 3 inch ones like my 16 had and then pull the replace ment wires thru. a small thin person child can also help

[BobinCovington]

Thanks, both answers help big time. Using a child to get into an area I can't reach myself (and possibly get the child stuck) made me laugh for a second. I might try a borescope to look in there if I can borrow one from work.

Yes I sure would be interested in a wiring harness if you had one. Otherwise I can run individual wires and pull them through. Any estimate or list of how many wires approximately and what each wire is going through there?

This is a big help...thanks again

[robertbj]

Bob,
Here is a photo from behind my dash. You can see the hull # and date of build. As you can see there are two sets of wires going to the back. The one in the spiral wrap goes to the engine. The one enclosed in a plastic shrink wrap goes to the electric buss on the transom that supplies power for transom light, bilge pump and blower, and trim pump. Like to see photos of your boat to compare mine with.
Bob from Michigan.

[BobinCovington]

I will go look at the wiring this next weekend, but your description makes sense.

my boat is in the link in my signature

[MOP]

If you plan on doing some of it over here is a handy link referencing wire colors and sizes.

http://www.boatus.com/boattech/cable.htm

[penbroke]

Check out this thread (http://www.donzi.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1482&highlight=wiring) for wiring info. Should be real close to your original setup.


Frank