Purchased 1997 Sport Nautique, Need help

[jrivera1262]

I just purchased a 1997 sport nautique. The previous owner had been restoring it since 2005. Since then the boat has been in a garage, partially assembled. Im in need of some help. The entire dash and guages are all new and sort of pre-wired. I need to finish making all the final connections and there are some interior and mechanical issues im having. Does anyone on here have a 1997 sport nautique that would be willing to send me some pictures of certain components or answer questions on what goes where? Please let me know and thanks in advance.

[Bri93SN]

Do you have any pictures of the areas you have questions about?

[AussieNorts]

I have a 1997 sport and have been restoring it for the last 12months, ask away

[jrivera1262]

AussieNorts,

The biggest chllange im going to have coming up is rewiring the entire dash. The previous owner bought all brnd new components and has most of it wired but not connected to the main harnessess. There were a couple of interior parts that I was not sure about but I think I figured them out. I dont however know exactly where some of the blower hoses go behind the gas tank and the area behind the engine between the engine and the muffler. Im pretty sure its 3" hose but not exactly sure what goes where? I can take some pictures tomorrow of the areas im having problems with and post them on here or send them to you. I appreciate any help I can get. Thanks in advance!

[jrivera1262]

Oh yeah, heres probably a quick and simple one. the screws that fasten the dash. Are they all dash thumb screws or dash flat screws? If so how many of each?

[Bri93SN]

On my 93, there are 4 dash thumb screws.

Most of the gauges have a ground connection, a Purple (which is positive switched on by the ignition), a signal (sender) wire if applicable, and a blue for the switched lighting.

Often times, the guages will have a seperate ground for the light. On my 93, the lights that go in the gauges, are their own seperate entity, and thus have their own ground.

CC usually did it with a "daisy chain", another words, the purple would go from gauge, to gauge. And, the black ground would go from gauge to guage. They did it by crimping two wires together at each junction, and on to the next. A little cheesy.

If you were doing it from scratch, a better solution is is to have the grounds say, all meet at a common ground strip sometimes called a "bus."

[Rick]

I took pictures and posted them when I converted to Faria gauges. If you search Faria gauge it may give you a good idea about the wiring under the dashpod. I don't know if it was 97 or 98 when they went to Teleflex, but a lot of the wiring should be similar.

[DanielC]

In 1997, Correct Craft used Teleflex analog gauges. They are a lot better than the 2000 Teleflex digital disaster. They also used two Airguide speedometers.

I do not think there is a need to go to a buss bar system for the gauge power and ground (purple and black wires) The gauges draw very little current, so voltage drop to the gauges is not a problem. Same idea applies to gauge lighting. I would try to keep the wiring for the engine gauges independent of the accessories, and always powered by the key.

If you have Perfect Pass, that does need a good source of battery voltage. Perfect pass draws a fairly high current to drive the servo motor, and the control box that gets current before the servo motor is voltage sensitive.

If you are adding any accessories a bus bar would be a good addition. The original Correct Craft wiring had four accessory breakers, that also functioned as push button switches, but hooking any thing up to them that took more than a amp or two would cause an excessive voltage drop in the system. I would keep the accessories independent of the engine and gauge wiring.

The horn switch just used the same voltage source as all the other accessories, and the full current of the horn went through the horn switch. To the best of my knowledge, every car on the road uses a relay to control actual horn current, and the horn button in the car only activates the coil on the relay. The horn on my 1997 ski would honk, most of the time if the engine was running, and I had recently cleaned the contacts inside the switch, After adding a relay, the horn is much louder, honks all the time, engine on or off, and the volt meter on the dash no longer drops below 10 volts when I honk the horn.

If you want, I can go take a picture of my 1997 Ski Nautique dash, showing gauge location.

[jrivera1262]

Ok. Thanks for all the info. After looking at the wiring the previous owner did it looks like he daisy chained most if the connections. The gauges he put in are ". They are all brand new. I think this might be a little above my do it yourself level unless I have a very specific diagram and instructions. This job might have to go to the nautique dealer.

Another issue I'm having is that I'm trying to replace the steering wheel hub (metal part where steering wheel bolts onto with 6 bolts) unfortunately I have not been able to get it off. I even tried a puller tool with no luck and not budging.

Also, I'm trying to figure out how to put back together the driver seat slide mechanism. Not sure how it all goes together?

Rick, how can I see the pictures you posted?

Thanks for all the help everyone!

[Bri93SN]

Try this question on Correct Craft Fan as well. Keith himself just bought a 97, and I know he's done some wiring work with his stereo already, and he mentioned he had low voltage dash issues. Also, look at this thread: http://www.correctcraftfan.com/forum...wiring-diagram Also, look at the Picassa album linked by N2Deep.

[whitfield]

jrivera1262,
Did you pick up the purple 97 Sport out of Orlando area? That project Sport has been tempting me to talk the wife into another Disney Trip ~ just so I can make the drive to take a look in person. Seat / steering wheel / dash ~ looks like it will need similar work.

[jrivera1262]

Yeah, that's the one..