2004 420DB Sedan Bridge - Fair Game - Project Thread

[newfreedom]

Once again, your electronic upgrades look great! My Kvh M3 crapped out and I'm in the market for the new KVH TV3 system. Any recommendations on where the best prices are for the TV3 unit?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[CougarCruiser]

Looks great! Any additional pics of how you mounted the Samsung?

mounting was pretty easy. Make a couple of 3/4 starboard cleats and attach them to the sides appropriately considering the panel and mount you are using. Then, just cut out a 3/4 starboard panel and attach the TV mount to that. Install the panel, then mount the TV to the mount. The TV covers the screws for mounting the panel to the cleats

 

[CougarCruiser]

Once again, your electronic upgrades look great! My Kvh M3 crapped out and I'm in the market for the new KVH TV3 system. Any recommendations on where the best prices are for the TV3 unit?

the sponsors of this site are great to deal with. BOE marine. They also price match competition. I also have had great luck with iMarineUSA.com.

 

[newfreedom]

the sponsors of this site are great to deal with. BOE marine. They also price match competition. I also have had great luck with iMarineUSA.com.

Thanks!

 

[CougarCruiser]

The Davit and Tender are nearing completion. I've started begging my canvas guy to get going on a cover asap. Everything is so nice and shiny, it's amazing.

Some pictures of the near final work (still have some safety straps and support to finish up.

I am particularly happy with how high the tender lifts out of the water. This reduces a safety risk of any swamping waves in a sea that comes from behind, or us in any rougher conditions. Also, it makes it easy to back the boat in and have access to the tender from all sides via the dock or the swim step.

 

[h_gerry]

That dinghy setup looks real good. You are right, the amount of height off the water is impressive. I would something like that for mine, but since I don't have a bridge, I would never be able to see astern.

 

[Alex F]

CugarCruiser,

Interesting approach with davits. I don't see how the dinghy is secured while raised. Just a word of caution, before heading in open water, make sure the dinghy is VERY well secured and doesn't move in any direction.

 

[CougarCruiser]

That dinghy setup looks real good. You are right, the amount of height off the water is impressive. I would something like that for mine, but since I don't have a bridge, I would never be able to see astern.

I am definitely going to have to add a couple of backup cameras on the corners. More for the tight pivoting maneuvers that are needed sometimes.

 

[CougarCruiser]

CugarCruiser,

Interesting approach with davits. I don't see how the dinghy is secured while raised. Just a word of caution, before heading in open water, make sure the dinghy is VERY well secured and doesn't move in any direction.

Alex, they are still finishing some of the safety/tie down components of the install. And, I will run a line from bow and stern of the tender to the stern cleats.

You are totally right though!

 

[Alex F]

That dinghy setup looks real good. You are right, the amount of height off the water is impressive. I would something like that for mine, but since I don't have a bridge, I would never be able to see astern.

Harold,

Just an FYI, in most bridge boats (regardless of the brand) with FWD helm, you never see the stern to begin with. All you get is 2'x2' window via the stairs to the bridge. That's all I'm using when docking. In setup like mine, or those with dinks on a extended platform, it's actually easier. Since a dinghy sticks out much further than integrated platform, you can see the outer side of the dinghy tube and use it as your guide in regards to stern.

 

[CougarCruiser]

Just about ready to cross off the dinghy on the project list. This one was a doozy. Stainless tie down straps to hold the boat in should be here this week. my canvas guy finished the cover, and has a couple little things to wrap up.

Pretty happy with how the dinghy turned out... The wife isn't so happy with how much everything cost. But, our little boy is super pumped to go for rides here soon, and we'll have a great time cruising in this. Garmin swapped my 70S for a 741XS - which is a much better chartplotter... She's got a great little stereo, and set up for evening cruises with lots of LEDs. The cover is manageable (although not fun) to put on. The console grab handle is an awesome vertical support, so no support posts, and no obvious places for water to gather!

My final to-do is to install a small promariner battery charger/maintainer that will plug into a 120ac outlet I installed right by the shore power plugs.

 

[Rocket]

Cougar, did they back plate under the swim platform? We had a similar cantilevered system on my 420. The swim platform was cored and not set up to handle the load. We needed to make custom stainless backing plates which was a real PITA!!

 

[CougarCruiser]

Yeah, rocket, we have plates under the platform. Each side has a plate approximately 10x22 with threaded holes for the mounting bolts. The coring on our platform is pretty good. Better than most meridians. We did tie in the pull posts to a couple stringers using turnbuckles. The setup is rated for 1000 lbs. I have about 500 lbs. because we hang so far off the back, it did affect the level of the boat slightly.

 

[Rocket]

I like that set up and good to hear the installer/manufacturer put the engineering into proper supports. Very nice Job, love the tender too.

 

[Bottom Line]

mounting was pretty easy. Make a couple of 3/4 starboard cleats and attach them to the sides appropriately considering the panel and mount you are using. Then, just cut out a 3/4 starboard panel and attach the TV mount to that. Install the panel, then mount the TV to the mount. The TV covers the screws for mounting the panel to the cleats

I'm a visual person....would it be possible for you to snap some pics from the side of you TV so I can see your layout and mount?

 

[CougarCruiser]

I finally got to an 'almost complete' point with an ongoing upgrade to the Audio side of the audio/video upgrades I've been working on. I figured it'd be worth a few notes for anyone else considering.

When we bought the boat, the stereo was mostly-stock, with the only change being a change out of the panasonic speakers in the radar arch to some cheapo deluxe MTX components. Thanks for putting an extra hole in the boat. That cost me a few more bucks... but it's worth it.

Last summer, one of this first changes I made was the swap of the salon speakers to some Infinity Kappas, unplugging the forward stateroom speakers (didn't want them), and changing the amp over. I left the 'outside' largely unchanged because that was going to be more of an undertaking.

Last fall, I scored some JL Audio product at a great sale, as well as the Fusion IP700 radio. My plan has always been to upgrade the outside speakers to JL, and move to a 3 zone audio system (Salon, Cockpit, Helm) with the Fusion. The Fusion remote replaced the old Clarion on the bridge, and I replaced the stock head unit (Clarion) with the Fusion. At the same time, I added a dedicated 8' Shakespeare Antenna opposite the VHF on the arch. I got the bluetooth adapter, and also mounted a USB/aux connection in the salon. The DirecTV signal also feeds audio to the stereo as a source.

The near-final product has some together pretty well. The only retrofit came from the hole-hogging the factory did for the stock clarion subwoofer hole. It must've been a Friday. Although the JL fit in the opening, the opening was so jagged and oversized that I could not get a workable screw pattern. So, I had to make a ring out of starboard to help with that. Came out not so bad. All of the speakers had plenty of depth behind them. The only thing to be aware of is you either have to cut the bolts or put shorter bolts in the arch for the factory VHF mount.

Wiring wise, I bumped up the breaker in the panel to support the amps. I did not go straight to batteries or anything. I just re-ran some wire from the panel. I was worried about this, but wanted a clean install. I've gotten no 'noise' from running this way, and I ran it today for a lengthy amount of time with no issue whatsoever.

The Fusion is a no-joke marine setup. Bluetooth works great, sound is fantastic, clear, crisp. You just can't go wrong with a JL/Fusion combo. Well worth the investment.

Here are some pics:

 

[Havana Shamrock]

Very nice install did you add a sub to the cockpit? If so where? Is the 1 breaker sufficient for the 2 amps? I have some of my JL /fusion stuff waiting to install.

 

[CougarCruiser]

Very nice install did you add a sub to the cockpit? If so where? Is the 1 breaker sufficient for the 2 amps? I have some of my JL /fusion stuff waiting to install.

The boat had a clarion package with a 10" sub at the bridge. I did not add one on the back cockpit. Thought about it, but the 7.7's do fine on the back cockpit for me right now. The Fusion does have a sub channel for each 'zone' if I remember right - so I'd say go for it!

As for breakers --- the boat powered the Clarion 4 channel, and another amp for the salon/fwd state room on that same breaker - which I think is a 25amp. I got a 50 amp to run from the bilge panel, but decided to just try the 25amp off the house panel for now. Flounder Pounder stocks the carling breakers that Sea Ray used in the era.

I don't know where Sea Ray put the amps on your boat, but they are on the opposite side of the entertainment center on ours. Make sure you are thoughtful about your RCA runs - making sure you run enough of them, amp remote wires, etc. We're pre-wired for the 4th zone to the fwd stateroom, we just don't want it at the moment.



Total side note... I'm really excited to try out the Fusion NMEA 2000 features. I'm getting rid of the nasty raymarine Seatalk junk, and going with new Garmin 7600s, Std Horizon VHF, tab sensors, camera, etc. Fusion apparently wires in NMEA 2000 for simple install - I will probably add another remote off the cockpit thanks to this. Plus, my new KVH TV3 uses NMEA 2000 for GPS coordinates to track satellites faster. The technology is improving!

 

[CougarCruiser]

It is haul-out season! We hauled out yesterday for a variety of projects, and to continue the restoration of this boat since we bought it....

1) The bennett tabs have been non operational due to a blown actuator. We're replacing the pump, and both actuators with unites with the coil sensor caps so I can plug the sensors in via NMEA 2000
2) R&R the props. Taking an inch of pitch out to reduce engine load and help with the added weight of our davit & tender.
3) The Tides Shaft seals need servicing. Time to replace them, and replace the spares
4) The strut bearings are dying a slow death. This boat has 2 different hub sizes on the props - one of which is a little close for comfort to the strut. I think this is causing premature overheating of one of the bearings. So, we'll be fixing that up. More than likely we'll put extensions on the shaft coupler to help with that.
5) Anodes and some bottom paint touch ups. We thought we might have to repaint this year, but there's still a couple years of life still yet. However, we're painting the underside of the transom and raising the waterline of the bottom paint a bit.

Learning more and more about this boat as I go. Such a huge difference than our 33' express with gas outdrives were. Survey called out the running gear as an area that would need attention in a year or 2. So, we're tackling it now.

We had been thinking hard about a stern thruster. The good news is we'll save a bunch of money... The bad news is that getting a bigger stern thruster is a little too tight a fit inside the transom. Might be possible, but it's a tough one. We're skipping it for now. Maybe next year.

 

[CougarCruiser]

Figure it's time for another update --- we've made great progress on updating the electronics on the boat. We've been stripping out all of the old Raymarine gear (radar, C120, raynav GPS, Raymarine VHF, etc) and updating it to the latest Garmin gear. This has been quite a process considering all the holes in the boat already. There was a weird camera setup that was non functional - so that was pulled out as well.

Some before pictures....


What you see is a C120 in the center dash panel, and the Cummins SmartCraft guages with strange Clarion camera screen in the left panel. The black box vhf handset was also in that left panel. What you don't see is the raynav gps head unit cut into the dash on the horizontal plane under the camera screen.





We progressed into stripping everything out. No more C120, no more VHF, no more Raynav GPS, no more weird camera screen. We were left with holes. Either the factory or the previous owner's installers butchered up the dash panel pretty good....





Now came the fun part.... I purchased a left panel from Flounder pounder that was meant for an old raymarine screen - which had a cutout smaller than that which is needed for a new Garmin 7612XSV. Our nanny's husband runs a waterjet machine, so he made me panels and cutouts that were perfect fit for everything along the way. To fill the old VHF hole in the dash, we put in a USB charger. We moved the smartcraft guage to where the hole for the old raynav was. This required a little cutting of the opening, and a custom 1/4" starboard panel to finish it off nicely.



The center panel was re-used. We were left with a gigantic hole where the C120 was. In a wonderful world, I would have ponied up for another 7612 and the full Garmin AIS black box VHF. Unfortunately, I found a couple deals too good to pass up on a 7608 and Standard Horizon GX2200 VHF. These will work great for now. I really wanted the 2nd screen for the ability to show other stuff than the nav charts. I use this for sonar, controlling the fusion radio, and some nav charting. Had another panel cut for the openings, and it fit right in. I do like the VHF's speaker built into the unit - makes it much easier to hear than having the speaker down below my left knee.




We built out 2 NMEA2000 core networks -- one in the upper helm, and one down in the entertainment center in the salon. the KVH TV3 gets GPS from the network, the Fusion audio uses the NMEA network, and I have our trim tabs hooked into the system via the Garmin GBT interface. At the helm, we have the GMR18xHD radar that is shown in previous pics, a new TM150 transducer, and one Garmin camera installed (with another one wired and ready to go when I get the 2nd camera).

In hindsight, I should have skipped on the Fusion remote at the dash. That one will be pulled out since the fusion can be fully controlled from the Garmin's. I'll move that one down to the back cockpit area of the boat. That hole will be filled at some point with the new Garmin Reactor auto pilot system. Hopefully, once those last changes are done, we're done with electronics for a while.

Anyone who hasn't played with the new 7600 series is missing out. Great interface, the Garmin helm UI is amazing. Everything is smooth, fast, and instant. Their vision cards have great pictures and details of our area for boating. Highly recommended.