'02 SANTE Heater Installation Photo Chronicle

[ag4ever]

I started the actual installation of my group buy heater this morning. I decided to start posting the progress while some resin needs to cure.

Begining photos:

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Step Two: Remove driver's seat.

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Step Three: Remove kick Panel and Fuse Panel from Kick Panel.

[ag4ever]

To remove the fuse panel, you simply loosen one wing nut, and swing the aluminum bar up out of the way. Once the bar is moved, the fuse block can just be pulled straight back, and then swung up out of the way. I wedged mine between the deck, and some other wires. Becarefull you don't damage anything while wedging it up there.

[ag4ever]

Step Four: determine if there are any un-necessary obstructions:

[ag4ever]

The hump is what the panel attaches to. As you can see my panel has been installed at least three times. I plan to install my heater where the hump is, so It has to go.

Stay tuned for details on how I will be mounting the kick panel.

[ag4ever]

Step Five: Remove hump with the use of a reciprocating saw and an angle grinder.

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Step Six: (actually shown in step five photos) Lay down four layers of fiberglass cloth, fully saturated with polyester resin. (I called my dealer to find out whick resin is correct to use, and they said use a high quality polyester resin, not epoxy)

The next few steps will be add additional layers of fiberglass, some the size of the hole, and some larger than the hole. In between layers that have fully cured, I will sand prior to installing additional layers. In all I plan to put down over 15 layers.

[ag4ever]

Step Seven: Sanding of first set of layers of fiberglass

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Step Eight: Additional multiple layers laid up

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Step Nine: Add additional layers to the last set of layers while they are still slightly tacky. I did this because everything looked to be laying up good, and there were no sharp corner the glass was not laying up flat on like the first set of layers. As long as the surface is still tacky, you will get a good bond. If it is not tacky, it will require sanding to get rid of the surfacing wax. The wax seals off the air allowing the resin to cure completly. If it was regular laminating resin, the surface would always stay a little tacky.

[ag4ever]

Step Ten: start shaping the heater/Kick Panel mounting plate. I am using startboard to mount to the deck for asthetic and functional reasons.

First, it looks a lot better than bare fiberglass, and since i don't plan to patch the carpet without it the fiberglass would be exposed anytime I removed the kick panel for any maintenance reasons.

Second, it give me a surface that I can add fasteners to in any location without filling the fiberglass floor up with holes. It also give me a nice structure to attach the kick panel to.

[ag4ever]

(An Aside)

The hump: On my boat it sure looked like this thing was installed backwards. The slope was on the side that the kick panel attaches to. On the bow side the thing was nearly vertical.

Before I cut the thing entirely out, I made a test cut on the corner. Then i cut about half of it out to be sure there was nothing inside of it. Then I went hog wild and took it down to the deck.

[ag4ever]

(more hump trash)

[ag4ever]

Step Eleven: Fourth and final layers of fiberglass. That makes more than 20 individual layers of cloth saturated with polyester resin.

Step Twelve: Cut out carpet to match mounting plate.