Most of my time the last couple of days has been devoted to cleaning out the previous owner’s stuff, trying to grok his rather interesting thought processes, and making lists of things to do. The downside is I’m also having to make lists of stuff to buy, replace, and repair.
Or in other words I just bought a boat…
The hardest part has been trying to fathom the boat’s electrical system and the easiest solution is just to pull it out and rewire it to something approaching sanity. Going into any boat refit I always assume that redoing the electrical system is a given so no surprises there but when confronted with some folks electrical systems I start to lose faith in the human race.
So, the two things on my mind today is I need a new electrical panel for the engine yesterday and batteries. My frugal nature recoils at the thought of paying $799 for a Yanmar replacement panel and a new bank of batteries has me in boat bucks territory and everyone knows I simply do not do Boat Bucks.
See what I mean?
Just in case anyone has some connection that I’m unaware of in terms of less expensive alternatives, feel free to drop a note in the comments.
Oh yeah, about the comments, I really hate to have to moderate the comments but the spam bots are a real and present danger and just this morning I had a couple of dozen gambling spams and the daily dose of porn spam to delete before I got to write today’s post. Hopefully I’ll be able to sort out some program that deletes the spam but in the meantime you’ll just have to wait a bit before your comments go live.
The panel has “charachter”, are you saying its completely defunct? I ran an old Bukh with no instruments at all, no warning lights or buzzers or rev counter etc. I mean, you check your oil level before you start it and make sure your water inlet strainer is not blocked and ejecting water out the exhaust , right?
What is this beast anyhoo for non US boaters?
Sure there’s character and then there’s character!
The issue for the moment is more about exploring the frugal possibilities. I would much prefer to have a Bukh and its simplicity but the Islander 36 has a Yanmar. Still a pretty simple motor but replacement parts are silly expensive. That said, it could be worse if I had a Volvo!
I’ll most likely just make my own panel with minimal bits but still curious if anyone has a better cunning plan.
Do any of the purveyors of Chinese Yanmar clones do anything suitable? Prices for their parts for smaller engines are sufficiently low that you can buy two, bin one when you do the quality inspection that the factory omitted, and still be many bucks ahead of buying the original. Durability seems…erm…OK.
Here’s your cheap answer for a Yanmar panel. I actually imported one from the USA to Australia when I couldn’t find one for the right price.
Cheers
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/3141244729509995/?ref=search
Has to be a simple “buzzer” option that could be wired in. Instruments are only good while they are being watched. Islander 36, is that the deep keel and tall rig version? 2.5 tons of lead has a good sound to it. I was looking at a boat in San Fran, with a Volvo……unfortunately not the Perkins-Volvo hybrid but the 2000 series. Stainless elbows can be made up, but those Yannie water pumps were always a pricy hit. Worth checking the engine mounts too, there are other options than the originals.
“I start to lose faith in the human race”…. don’t. Lots of people have talents I don’t have and when I try to teach them things I am good at… I fail. A 50year old boat has been through a umber of people who, if the light they installed actually lit, are dancing. Before you bought the boat, someone else on a low budget already bought it (maybe a few of them) and so had to do their own maintenance if they were able or not… just watch some YT videos of people on low budget fix-ups. Still, I am looking at my own boat’s wiring and thinking how I can clean it up and not tear out too much of the furniture (which is thankfully in nice shape).
We’re the fifth owner of the Islander and it was totaled twice in Hurricanes Hugo and Marilyn so it has had a lot of work done over the years. That said, my issue with some of the work done by previous owners of folks they hired is that there is really no excuse for bad workmanship. Most of the issues I find in fixer-uppers is that it’s not that they were on a budget but they just did not think through on what they were doing.
It’s not like there are not a bunch of great books on just about all possible variations of fixing , outfitting, or improving boats. YouTube channels seem to prefer to make it up as they go and a lot of time, labor, and money gets wasted because they did not do the required research.