1956 Crestliner Electrical Gounding

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  • August 8, 2020 at 7:22 pm #211165
    RetiredGunny
    Participant

      I’ve acquired a 1956 Crestliner Voyager hardtop that needed some wiring. The previous owner had the negative grounded to the boat (aluminum, of course). I didn’t think that was altogether proper as I saw other videos and instructions on wiring using a negative bus bar. I noticed that the horn and bow light, however, are grounded to the boat using their own mounts. I was just wondering what thoughts might be as to using the boat as the ground or the bus bar or combination of both. I have a 4 gang switch plate with negative bus that I will be installing. Any ideas? Thanks.

      August 8, 2020 at 9:27 pm #211173
      joecb
      Participant

        US MEMBER PAY BY CHECK

        Do not use the boat hull as a ground !! Run hot and ground wires to each fixture or appliance. Its perfectly fine to run grounds back to a central buss which in turn is connected to the battery negative. Best to run the “hot” side to a terminal strip with fused circuits.

        Joe B

        August 9, 2020 at 11:58 am #211205
        outbdnut2
        Participant

          US Member

          Like Joecb said, you are asking for trouble – bad connections, galvanic action corrosion, etc it you use an aluminum boat hull as a ground return. It’s just as easy to run two wire instead of one and not much added cost.
          Dave

          FYI: If you don’t already know, there is a good message board like this one and a lot of other info for old Crestliner restoration at http://retrocrestliner.com/

          1 user thanked author for this post.
          RetiredGunny
          August 9, 2020 at 12:52 pm #211210
          jeff-register
          Participant

            US Member

            Last fuseblock I replaced it had landing lugs for pos & neg both with tabs to connect branch wiring, pos was fused.

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