Way north bass guy Posted March 2, 2018 Posted March 2, 2018 I’m following this thread with great interest! I have a new boat, have had three different ones bought brand new over the years but have owned older ones in the past as well, and I did enjoy working on the older ones ( from time to time, not always?). It’s going to be fun riding along with you on this adventure, so to speak, and maybe we’ll all learn a thing or two about something for our own rigs that we may have to deal with in the future.  By the way, nice job on the bilge cleanup. You’re off to a good start, keep up the posts, they’re fun to watch ?? 2 Quote
th365thli Posted March 3, 2018 Author Posted March 3, 2018 After talking to the mechanic, he said it'll be a little over $500 parts and labor to clean and refit the fuel system. I also asked him to look at the venting too, since the exhaust hose was completely torn up. Because he's so backed up, it'll be about a week before I have any news.   Quote
th365thli Posted March 17, 2018 Author Posted March 17, 2018 Update #2 I finally have a mini update. The boat has been the mechanic for two weeks. I received a call from the mechanic and....  -The fuel system has been refitted with new hoses. Apparently the mechanic couldn't get the tank out himself but he managed to fit everything. -He ran the motor and says it sounds great. Apparently there was something blocking the water flow, he unblocked and the tell-tale pees like it should. This is great news, because for now I don't have to change out the impeller. I bought a new one and a new gasket just in case -He thinks the motor not being able to shutoff is a wiring issue. He suspects a wire near the motor has been broken. I'll check again when I pick up the boat tomorrow. -The left side fuel gauge is not working. This is easily remedied as a fuel indicator system is not that complex. -So before I sent off the boat to the mechanic I managed to tighten the existing trim cap seals. The mechanic said it just needs more fluid, so I ordered more fluid and will be topping that off.  All in all, some welcome and relieving news. The most pressing issue now is the motor stop issue. The best case is that it's a broken wire. The worst case is I need to replace the power pack, which of course I would need to send it back again.  I'm super stoked to be getting the boat back tomorrow, and I'll be working on it all day weather permitting. I have some exciting things coming in (or already received):  -2 group 30 Cabela's deep cycle batteries for the trolling motor -18' x 8' teal colored carpet from boatcarpetbuys.com -Seastar hydraulic fluid (unfortunately the stupid proprietary hose fitting is taking a while to ship). Does anyone know how to fill/bleed without using their proprietary overpriced kit? -Meguiars Fiberglass restoration kit  I updated the 1st post with things already finished and more things to be done.  1 Quote
Super User Further North Posted March 17, 2018 Super User Posted March 17, 2018 Cool...and fun to read! Quote
th365thli Posted March 18, 2018 Author Posted March 18, 2018 Sometimes I astound myself with how stupid I can be.  Today I checked the live well and bilge system. I undid most of the hoses and took out two bilge pumps and the rear aerator pump. All but one of the bilge pumps worked and seemed to run robust. It must be a wiring issue that they didn’t run when hooked up to the boat wiring system.  However, while checking and rechecking the wires I accidentally reversed polarity on my battery. Now everything is dead.  I panicked and called another local mechanic, he told me to relax and not worry, older two strokes are simple and there’s probably a blown fuse in the motor somewhere. If the motor was newer and had a computer I might be screwed. I asked him about the boat wiring and gauges and he told me he would check for me. The fuse blocks were okay for the accessories. I wonder if fixing the motor fuse would fix the gauges or if there are two separate circuit breakers.  At any rate....yay for carelessness and stupidity.   1 Quote
Super User iabass8 Posted March 18, 2018 Super User Posted March 18, 2018 Ha, you're fine. There's (usually) a main fuse under the cowling next to or behind the wiring harness. You probably blew it. Just get a few extra and replace it. Quote
th365thli Posted March 18, 2018 Author Posted March 18, 2018 30 minutes ago, iabass8 said: Ha, you're fine. There's (usually) a main fuse under the cowling next to or behind the wiring harness. You probably blew it. Just get a few extra and replace it. Thanks, are the gauges and motor hooked up such that replacing that fuse will fix the gauges? I’ll be calling ranger tmrw to ask their opinion. Quote
Super User iabass8 Posted March 18, 2018 Super User Posted March 18, 2018 11 minutes ago, th365thli said: Thanks, are the gauges and motor hooked up such that replacing that fuse will fix the gauges? I’ll be calling ranger tmrw to ask their opinion. Yea. They all share (or should) the same wiring harness. Ive swapped out gagues and put the ground on the wrong post...shorted the whole boat. Blew the main fuse on the motor. It happens. 1 1 Quote
Super User Further North Posted March 19, 2018 Super User Posted March 19, 2018 3 hours ago, iabass8 said: Yea. They all share (or should) the same wiring harness. Ive swapped out gagues and put the ground on the wrong post...shorted the whole boat. Blew the main fuse on the motor. It happens. Yep. Stuff happens. That's how we learn. PDCA. 1 Quote
th365thli Posted March 19, 2018 Author Posted March 19, 2018 Yep, found the fuse, checked it, and it's busted.  Will be ordering a bunch of these.  Hopefully the gauges will work as well. Thanks y'all. 1 Quote
TheRodFather Posted March 20, 2018 Posted March 20, 2018 That wire feeds 12v to the outboard controller, and possibly some other functions at the console. I wouldn't think fixing the blown fuse would make something work that wasn't working before the fuse blew.   If you have a DVOM it should be easy enough to check continuity in different places to isolate the break that is keeping your controller from grounding out the CDI box. If you ground the CDI out with a jumper to a good ground, and the motor shuts off, you can rule out the CDI box like you already mentioned. If the problem is on the black wire side of the circuit that might explain some random things not working. Dielectric grease does a great job of keeping moisture out once you get the terminals/plugs cleaned up. If you haven't already, maybe have a peek in the outboard controller at the ignition switch itself to see if there is evidence of heat damage or arcing.  How many wires are coming off the cranking battery? Just the wires going to the outboard, or are there others? The majority of "house" power to the boat, pumps, lights etc, should be getting 12v from the battery, and not getting their power from that wire, the stator/alternator isn't really designed for that much load, that wire is mainly for 12v power to the controller for starting/ignition signal, and possibly the gauges/gauge back lighting or other minor current draws. A lot of times, over the years, people add things and use the easiest 12v they can find, but that wire isn't meant to handle much, and every load that gets added to it has the potential to steal amps that should be used to charge the cranking battery when the outboard is running.   Quote
th365thli Posted March 20, 2018 Author Posted March 20, 2018 2 hours ago, TheRodFather said: That wire feeds 12v to the outboard controller, and possibly some other functions at the console. I wouldn't think fixing the blown fuse would make something work that wasn't working before the fuse blew.   If you have a DVOM it should be easy enough to check continuity in different places to isolate the break that is keeping your controller from grounding out the CDI box. If you ground the CDI out with a jumper to a good ground, and the motor shuts off, you can rule out the CDI box like you already mentioned. If the problem is on the black wire side of the circuit that might explain some random things not working. Dielectric grease does a great job of keeping moisture out once you get the terminals/plugs cleaned up. If you haven't already, maybe have a peek in the outboard controller at the ignition switch itself to see if there is evidence of heat damage or arcing.  How many wires are coming off the cranking battery? Just the wires going to the outboard, or are there others? The majority of "house" power to the boat, pumps, lights etc, should be getting 12v from the battery, and not getting their power from that wire, the stator/alternator isn't really designed for that much load, that wire is mainly for 12v power to the controller for starting/ignition signal, and possibly the gauges/gauge back lighting or other minor current draws. A lot of times, over the years, people add things and use the easiest 12v they can find, but that wire isn't meant to handle much, and every load that gets added to it has the potential to steal amps that should be used to charge the cranking battery when the outboard is running.   Thanks for the detailed reply, everything you said is true or at least fits with what happened.  I only connected the motor battery leads wrong, which is why only the motor blew a fuse. The accessories cable also connects to the cranking battery but since I didn't connect them wrong (or at all) everything was intact. What a relief! For some reason I thought only one wire fed power to all the accessories, gauges, and motor, but thankfully that's not the case.  I definitely agree, I wouldn't want to add accessories directly on the main motor wire. Even in these older rangers there's ways to safely add additional accessories should you need it.  As far as the shut off issue, turns out my power pack was busted. Makes sense, since I was getting continuity on the white stop motor wire and ground. More details in the update below. Quote
th365thli Posted March 20, 2018 Author Posted March 20, 2018 Update #3  Some great news today. After blowing out the motor fuse yesterday I was able to meet with the mechanic today. It doesn't take a mechanic to change the fuse but I also wanted him to look at the motor shutoff issue. I checked continuity of the motor kill wire (on Yamahas it's white) with ground and there was a connection. I had sneakily suspected there was an issue with the CDI but held on to hope that it was something much cheaper. Shelling out 300-900 for a CDI assembly, depending on how used it is, really really sucks.  I dropped off the boat in the morning and was very pleasantly surprised when I got a call this afternoon saying it was ready. Turns out it was an issue with the CDI. I was very fortunate this mechanic was honest and helpful. He replaced the CDI assembly and pretty much only charged me for labor (He says he had a spare powerpack lying around). He also fixed my electronic choke. Finally, he helped me fill up my trim fluid on the spot when I asked him for it. All this was $500. That's not that much more than the cost of a used CDI assembly by itself! New ones run for around $900. So for $500 I got some important issues taken care of and a ton of wisdom from a reputable mechanic.  Now I get to move on to other things. Right now I'm checking the pumps. I'm again surprised that all the accesory wiring seems to be sound. Also, all pumps work except for the automatic bilge pump. A replacement is already on the way. I'm also replacing the rear aerator pump with a 800gph as opposed to the 500gph unit it came with. The flowrite valve control cable system seems really janky to me but it is what it is I guess. If I can't get those cables to cooperate I'm just going to manually flip the valve as opposed to the slider. I'm going to use the front livewell as an ice chest. It's tiny anyway, won't be that effective holding the massive 10lbers I'll catch (just kidding).   You can see in the background the manual bilge pump that came with the boat. It still runs strong. The automatic bilge pump I will install as soon as it gets here. One thing that's annoying is this ranger uses a two pin connector that I can't find anywhere. I have to cut the wire and solder the new pump wires onto the connector. If pumps fail on me I can only change them out so many times before I run out of wire to solder.   The livewell pump sliders were stuck. Most boats have a circle switch for the flowrite valves but I guess this boat is old-school. The front valve had a lot of gunk, cleaning that off I was able to use the slider. The other was just seized or something. Popped the panel open and sprayed WD40 into the cable sleeve. Though a little stiff, both work now. Not too concerned since I'm using the front livewell as an icebox. The rear one I'm going to keep on fill until I'm done for the day.   Replaced the fuses   Did some other things that I didn't take pictures of. Changed the trailer winch. I cleaned the compartments and the livewells. They were beyond filthy. Took out the middle seat in the bench. I need to get rid of the wood backrest in the middle, does anyone know how to do that? The screw heads are inside the boat if that makes in sense.  The laundry list is slowly but surely getting smaller. As far as strictly getting it ready to fish, I need to finish replacing the pumps. I have two deep cycle batteries and a circuit breaker along the way for the trolling motor. I have a Minn Kota Ultrex on the way (insanely excited about this). And I need to add steering fluid. If I wanted to fish ASAP, that's it. Of course I also want to replace the carpet, give the fiberglass a good treatment and cleaning, wipe down the vinyl seats, get a new power pedestal, and maybe recess the trolling motor foot pedal. But the end is in sight, just need to not screw anything up.  The total cost now is around $5500. This includes the price of the boat (but does not include the price of the Ultrex haha). However, I had to buy a lot of tools, some of which I should have had already. If you subtract the cost of tools and the cost of accessories like a boat cover and a hitch ball, the cost of restoration is around $4600. Most importantly, I've reached a point where I don't think I need to get anything else. The new carpet is sitting in the garage. I have the steering fluid and fiberglass treatment compounds. The Ultrex is on the way. Again, the price does not include the Ultrex. That's a luxury item so to speak, not a necessity. It's also near half the cost of this restoration project by itself :p.     Shout out to Leland's Marine and Voyager Marine for helping me with my troubles. I never got the sense I was being shafted by either one. Leland doesn't really work on outboards, but Voyager Marine has 30 years experience working on motors. 4 Quote
Super User TOXIC Posted March 20, 2018 Super User Posted March 20, 2018 Awesome progress. Just an FYI, I have made many a run to Radio Shack to get oddball connectors. Last time was replacing my old style Water Pressure Gauge with the new style. Ranger sent the wrong wiring pigtail and we headed out and made one ourselves. Depending on the level of oxidation in the gel, it will be well worth you time to wet sand. Some products will make it look new only to have the dull finish return in a month. Been there done that.  2 Quote
TheRodFather Posted March 20, 2018 Posted March 20, 2018 When I restored my boat, I used these connectors I found on ebay, now granted, I rewired the whole boat so at that point, the hassle of building the connectors was minor:  https://www.delcity.net/store/Deutsch-DT-Series-Plugs/p_821870.h_821871.r_IF1003?mkwid=s8Myre8ik&crid=38094426869&mp_kw=&mp_mt=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5vK28In72QIVClqGCh3lDwQqEAQYAiABEgKHsfD_BwE  They are waterproof, and I soldered them in, since I used the same pump manufacturer for bilge and livewell, and kept the pumps the "male" end of the connectors, I can switch pumps around quickly in case the bilge pump fails. I used the same type of pump that you have in your picture for bilge and livewell, so the motor/impeller cartridge can come out of either housing and go right into the other housing.  3 Quote
th365thli Posted March 20, 2018 Author Posted March 20, 2018 4 hours ago, TheRodFather said: When I restored my boat, I used these connectors I found on ebay, now granted, I rewired the whole boat so at that point, the hassle of building the connectors was minor:  https://www.delcity.net/store/Deutsch-DT-Series-Plugs/p_821870.h_821871.r_IF1003?mkwid=s8Myre8ik&crid=38094426869&mp_kw=&mp_mt=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5vK28In72QIVClqGCh3lDwQqEAQYAiABEgKHsfD_BwE  They are waterproof, and I soldered them in, since I used the same pump manufacturer for bilge and livewell, and kept the pumps the "male" end of the connectors, I can switch pumps around quickly in case the bilge pump fails. I used the same type of pump that you have in your picture for bilge and livewell, so the motor/impeller cartridge can come out of either housing and go right into the other housing.  Here is the thread for my resto:   My goodness, I thought my boat needed TLC. That looked like an adventure to say the least. Love the finished product though and I hope I get mine looking like yours. Just curious, how difficult was it to feed the wires through the hull? That's my biggest fear. Luckily the wiring in this one is pretty good so far and I haven't had to run any wires through anything yet. Quote
TheRodFather Posted March 21, 2018 Posted March 21, 2018 16 hours ago, th365thli said: My goodness, I thought my boat needed TLC. That looked like an adventure to say the least. Love the finished product though and I hope I get mine looking like yours. Just curious, how difficult was it to feed the wires through the hull? That's my biggest fear. Luckily the wiring in this one is pretty good so far and I haven't had to run any wires through anything yet. Well, I guess that all depends on where the wires go through. I will say that all of my wires were either behind aluminum panels that needed rivets drilled out and removed to get to, or encapsulated in the two part expanding foam that the manufacturer used when the boat was first built.  I had to rip out most of the foam so rigging new wiring was as easy as laying it in there then pouring new foam. If I was keeping the old foam, I imagine I could have put a slice in the foam to lay the wire in, like putting in one of those invisible dog fences, or using a long drill bit and drilling a channel.  But I am unfamiliar with fiberglass construction, so I don't really know if your boat has the foam in the cavities. 1 Quote
th365thli Posted March 22, 2018 Author Posted March 22, 2018 Update #4  Good day, got a lot of stuff done but first the bad news. The new 800 gph pump I got just died. I connected it and everything but then it wouldn't turn on. Checked voltage and I was feeding it power. Took it out and confirmed it died. Kind of annoying. I put the 500 gph one back in there and did a rough test of the fill feature.  I filled up the livewell then put the valve to "empty". This allows the water to drain out from the livewell drain hole. The drain hole is also the intake hole, so while the livewell was draining I turned the pump on. This isn't a perfect system because the pump sucks in water faster than the livewell can drain it. I'm not really sure exactly what's happening but I think the pump starts sucking in more air than water and eventually stops pumping in water. Regardless, I'm still able to verify nothing is plugged up and water is coming in. I'm confident when the boat is in water I'll have no issues:   The flowrite valve cables are a lost cause. Honestly, I'm not a fan of the design, it seems very prone to failure. I'm leaving it on "fill" most of the day anyway. So now I'll manually flip it to "empty" at the end of the day. I'll revisit this in the future, maybe next year, but for now, I'm able to put in water. I'l have a poor man's recirculate by filling it up and using the overflow to drain old water. In the future, I might overhaul the system with an auto and recirculate, but since I'm not tournament fishing (yet) it's not a huge concern.  Verified bilge pump is working:  I'm finally able to put in the battery tray and the oil tank in it's right place. It feels great to be pretty much done with the bilge area.   It's not the cleanest, but it's a billion times better than what it was before:   A funny issue. Both my trolling motor batteries came today. They're a little too wide. Ehh whatever. At this point I'm too tired to care. They're not going anywhere. (I only have one put in the picture)   Man, looking at these pictures I forgot to clean the lid. It's pretty moldy. Will do that as soon as the rain stops.  Also topped off the hydraulic steering fluid. Mechanic told me he doesn't think I need to bleed it. After topping it off the looseness definitely drastically decreased. I counted about 4-5 complete helm revolutions to make the motor go end to end. I think that's pretty standard. I tried moving the motor by hand and it felt decently stiff. I'll be keeping an eye on the seastar valve seals, but so far so good.  Whew, what a day. The benefits of getting to "work from home".  So let's go over what was done: Motor shut off issue fixed. Bilge area restored. Batteries replaced. Steering fluid added.  What still needs to be done: 3 bank charger coming in and needs to be installed. Install trolling motor circuit breaker. Install fish finder. Install trim tab anode. Marine-tex coming in and then I plug up some screw holes. And finally, installing the Ultrex. Supposedly the Ultrex can line up with the motorguide holes. Crossing my fingers this will work. That's for getting it on the water. I want to re-carpet it and restore the fiberglass too.  Seems like a lot, but a lot of these are straightforward tasks. Hopefully I'll be able to take it on the water next week. Just in time for the rains to end and the fish to move to the beds.  Oops I almost forgot. The port side fuel gauge doesn't work. Fuel gauges are not complicated, hope I can easily fix this one. 3 Quote
th365thli Posted March 28, 2018 Author Posted March 28, 2018 UPDATE #5  Started re-carpeting today. Stripped everything and vacuumed and cleaned. And boy did I clean. Lots of dirt and gunk that got accumulated over the years.....     Almost have the back finished. Need to replace all the latches. Also the carpeting job is a little messy, my first time doing. Don't really care that much as long as I get coverage. Plus I'm just going to redo it again in a few years anyway.     Installed the Ultrex. The most fun part of the day. Can't wait to use it.    Before I install the foot pedal, I want to re-carpet the front area. Pretty much spent an hour scraping, and it can still use some more. Putting on carpet is easy. Scraping it off sucks.    Almost finished with the critical stuff. Hoping to take her out this weekend.... 1 Quote
Super User iabass8 Posted March 28, 2018 Super User Posted March 28, 2018 Do yourself a favor and before you re-carpet the front, install a recessed TM tray. Looks good so far...aside from your choice in carpet color. 2 Quote
Super User WRB Posted March 28, 2018 Super User Posted March 28, 2018 I know you are tired of working on the batteries, make sure they are setting on a flat surface, not on the tray edges as that can crack the battery case. Did you find out how the gasoline fuel switch works? Looks like you are enjoying your Ranger 375 restoration project, very comfortable and stable hull to fish from, good luck. Tom 1 Quote
th365thli Posted March 28, 2018 Author Posted March 28, 2018 2 hours ago, iabass8 said: Do yourself a favor and before you re-carpet the front, install a recessed TM tray. Looks good so far...aside from your choice in carpet color.  Lmaoooo my girlfriend said the same thing. Reaffirms the fact all design choices must go through her. In my defense, it looked darker online. I really want to do a recessed tray but I'm almost budgeted out this month. No worries, I'll do it when I can. Plus I would need to get a jigsaw. I have a reciprocating saw but i'm not comfortable using it to make straight cuts. 1 hour ago, WRB said: I know you are tired of working on the batteries, make sure they are setting on a flat surface, not on the tray edges as that can crack the battery case. Did you find out how the gasoline fuel switch works? Looks like you are enjoying your Ranger 375 restoration project, very comfortable and stable hull to fish from, good luck. Tom Hmm, i'll by some wood and make a platform for the batteries. If you're talking about the switch that determines which tank (right or left) the gauge measures, i'm not sure. As in I'm not sure if the selector switch is faulty or the fuel sensor at the tank is faulty. The tank selector valve for feeding fuel works.  -------------------  Cleaning this boat is turning out to be a bigger task than I thought. It's a shame that it was allowed to sit in this condition for so long. Removed the front bench seat backing (kept the seat/lid). The port side bench seat was such a hassle. Long story short I had to bust out the reciprocating saw and cut away the wood to access the screw that wasn't turning like it should've been. And dirt. So much dirt and grime. But it's starting to come together and looking like a proper boat. Full update on Friday.  The driver and passenger seats seem to be in good enough condition for now. I'm certain the wood backing is weak and rotting, but they work and are stable. I spent a lot of money the past two months, so I'll ride these seats out for as long as I can and then install new ones.  ------------------------------  Checklist of things I need to do for my personal tracking:  -Finish carpeting the back -Finish Ultrex installation -Carpet the front deck -Plug up screw holes -Install latches and struts for the back compartments -Clean. Clean. And more cleaning. -Install fish finder -Fill her up with gas. -Test fire motor before taking it on the water  longer term: -Casting deck extension (fairly large project) -Drill holes in rod lockers so I can fit my rods -Recess foot pedal  Sort of a silly question, how do you guys fill her up without being close to a marine dock. Do you just go to a gas station and pump fuel like a car?  1 Quote
boostr Posted March 30, 2018 Posted March 30, 2018    On 3/28/2018 at 4:40 PM, th365thli said: Sort of a silly question, how do you guys fill her up without being close to a marine dock. Do you just go to a gas station and pump fuel like a car?  Yup, but in my case here in NJ somebody at the station has to do it. It's also handy when your tow vehicle and boat have the filler on the same side. Quote
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