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2022 Q - it's finally gonna happen!

On my RCW I had a cable that kept coming out of the back of the Garim . Do they still have that cover under the helm hiding the cables ?
 
Yep it’s like a stiff cardboard y carpet.
 
Any breakers or fuses under there?
 
If I recall there were some in line fuses, but that was a 2020 , could be different now . That cardboard was a pita too .
 
It look like pita. 2 hours on motor. Of course no mechanic around. The boat lift guys had to adjust the bunks so I got to practice docking about 10 times and I really need the help so that was ok. Boat runs fine and the engine screen works, but nothing else.
Note to all, do not take delivery on Friday and especially on a holiday weekend.
I’m changing my signature to Own a Benny, I can see it, I can’t use it!
 
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Ok I took down the cardboard carpet under helm and found a mess. It looks like the factory floor, pieces of wire, metal shavings, a screw or two, dirt and dust. Whoever puts in that carpet should just run a shop vac there and in 3 minutes it would be fine. The cup holders in the helm didn’t have a drainage hose hooked up rain and condensation will just drip and pour on all that wiring. The drainage hose was there for one of the holders but not hooked up to anything. The wiring is a jumbled mess and looks like I may have put it in there. The wireless charger for the seat in front of helm had become unsecured or never was and was hanging by its wires. There are many fuses in there most are behind bundles of wires and the only way to get to them would be to start unplugging lots of things. I wasn’t going to do that, so I did what a Marine would do and jiggle all the wires. Lo and behold the Simrad and helm came to life. I put the carpet back up and checked it out again and once again Dead Helm. So down with the carpet, another jiggle and all working again. So obviously a loose connection is in there. The carpet is now hanging in there till I get my 20 hour service. I’m very disappointed with the workmanship and I would suggest to have a peek in there before delivery or as soon as possible. If any Bennington reps want to talk to me I’m available anytime.
My Signature is now “own a Benny, love it, but am wary of poor practices in construction”
 
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I didn’t really check. I do know some knurled connections were very loose so I tightened the ones I could get too. I have jumped on an off boat so many times today, I was too tired and a little angry at what I saw. I don’t get angry so maybe sickened by very shoddy workmanship from factory. I was planning on a full ceramic coat today and prepping boat for daughter and her husband, so that didn’t happen.
The radio reception is not very good, so maybe a antenna line was tightened.
Does anyone know proper way to shut down Simrad with a master power switch?
 
I always used the master power switch ,Simrad and radio never lost memory. The radio antennas are usually bundled up. I have replaced mine with longer ones and taped up under the helm.
 
Great idea! Although I may just stream from phone
 
You should have no reception issues with your Surius . I didn't even use the fm after having sirius
 
That wiring “nest” has been that way since at least 2012 when I bought my first Bennington. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
When you do pop some of the connections, throw some dielectric in them. I have a wonky stereo connection that I lose speakers sometimes. A jiggle and it’s good to go. I keep forgetting to bring the grease to fix it.
 
The grease is a good idea. I’m costing all electric connections with anticorrosive spray today. Then doing the ceramic coating. I just found out the bilge pump is not on auto all the time, that seems really dumb. Shouldn’t it be on a hot battery buss?
 
SEMPERFI8387 said:
That wiring “nest” has been that way since at least 2012 when I bought my first Bennington. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
When you do pop some of the connections, throw some dielectric in them. I have a wonky stereo connection that I lose speakers sometimes. A jiggle and it’s good to go. I keep forgetting to bring the grease to fix it.
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The consoles on pontoon boats will often have a rats nest of wires dangling from their connections. This seems to meet the standards of the industry. For the moment I have 3 pontoons. All 3 came with a rats nest of wires that made it difficult to trace wires. While doing other modifications I cleaned up the wiring on both my new Bennington and the boat up north. I am now preparing to sell my old boat (with its rats nest of wiring) because it has been replaced by my new Bennington. I have had that old boat for 27 years. In that time I have not had a wiring or connector failure. The rats nest had the potential to effect serviceability but obviously not function. While redoing the console of my new Bennington I noted that the functional qualities of the wiring met a good standard. Even if I had not cleaned up the wiring on my new Bennington I would not worry about the boat giving good service for a long time.

On another topic dielectric grease will improve corrosion resistance but not electrical conductivity.
 
DVW said:
On another topic dielectric grease will improve corrosion resistance but not electrical conductivity.
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Good point. Slight corrosion has been my issue on 2 boats with the speaker issues.
 
Timdelta said:
The grease is a good idea. I’m costing all electric connections with anticorrosive spray today. Then doing the ceramic coating. I just found out the bilge pump is not on auto all the time, that seems really dumb. Shouldn’t it be on a hot battery buss?
Click to expand...
I’m thinking since these wouldn’t typically sink due to water intrusion, they just put it on a switch for “as needed”. It’s also probably just a regular bilge pump, not a float switch pump which you would need for auto function.
 
My Q had a dual switch on the control for "auto" or "Manual" for the bilge pump. But, I don't think it had a float so turning it on auto just turned it on. I'll have to take a look at the pump on the Q, and the switch and see how it's set up. I'm assuming it has no float and is just an on/off. It would have been great to get out this weekend, but after 2 years of avoiding covid it finally caught me last week. I spent the weekend in bed :(
 
Trippernsc said:
My Q had a dual switch on the control for "auto" or "Manual" for the bilge pump. But, I don't think it had a float so turning it on auto just turned it on. I'll have to take a look at the pump on the Q, and the switch and see how it's set up. I'm assuming it has no float and is just an on/off. It would have been great to get out this weekend, but after 2 years of avoiding covid it finally caught me last week. I spent the weekend in bed :(
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My switch has an on position, off positions, and auto position. I swear auto would simply run when there was water, I didn’t think my auto just ran all the time. However, after a year of not having the boat operational, and still another full month before I even get it back, it will be awhile before I can test that out.

On the flip side, take care and get healed up. Hopefully you will kick it smoothly and be to your old self soon.
 
Timdelta said:
The grease is a good idea. I’m costing all electric connections with anticorrosive spray today. Then doing the ceramic coating. I just found out the bilge pump is not on auto all the time, that seems really dumb. Shouldn’t it be on a hot battery buss?
Click to expand...
Right! I paid $260 during my service to have it direct wired from the battery with it's own power switch. Our monsoons can dump 10 to 20 gallons into my center toon quickly (even covered - hits the front deck and runs downs into the center tube hatch).
 
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