Official 400EC thread

Hello,
Hope all are having a good season so far. I just completely rebuilt my cockpit ice maker and have yet to hook it up in the boat. I ran unit for over a week after repairs and it works as new. Complete new ice tray assembly with heater and condenser motor bearings. Water lines thoroughly cleaned as well as the condenser, I even swapped the door hinge to open starboard to port, not sure why it was the other way. Any who, I'd be willing to trade for autopilot or... as well as sell out right. Reach out, its in nice condition. I just don't think its practical being AC only and would rather stuff the gaping hole it left with enormous audio amplifiers. Greg
 
GregM said:
Hello,
Hope all are having a good season so far. I just completely rebuilt my cockpit ice maker and have yet to hook it up in the boat. I ran unit for over a week after repairs and it works as new. Complete new ice tray assembly with heater and condenser motor bearings. Water lines thoroughly cleaned as well as the condenser, I even swapped the door hinge to open starboard to port, not sure why it was the other way. Any who, I'd be willing to trade for autopilot or... as well as sell out right. Reach out, its in nice condition. I just don't think its practical being AC only and would rather stuff the gaping hole it left with enormous audio amplifiers. Greg
Click to expand...

I thought about it too but decided that it could come in handy and it has. Nice to have fresh ice available for drinks or to just replenish a cooler when needed. I typically run my generator when away from dock, have an 8 year old to keep entertained with TV and WiiU .
 
Ice maker is very handy, once it's fixed or replaced. The previous owner (1) had disposed of the ice maker parts and used the box as a freezer and it did not work when I purchased it. I looked around and found several available and decided on the Vitrifrigo brand. I was attracted to the flush door model that did not extend past the face of the cabinet. Ordered from Defender, as they had the best price and delivery terms. It came with plenty of installation hose and fittings and was well packaged. I had to enlarge the opening by 1/2 inch sides and top. Was pretty easy and then whipped up some resin to seal the exposed wood. I installed a double set of coconut charcoal filters and it was plug and play from there. This thing is fast on recover and has a nice storage container. Has a switch much like a stat to set max recovery and a maintain mode if you like. If you want an honest 12 to 14 pounds a day this one works great. I keep a RTIC 45 cooler next to it. (Replaced my port ladder) and move the ice a few times a day from the maker to the cooler.....it's always full. Fresh ice is also nice for the slush drink fans on the boat that use the blender from time to time. I will see if I can get a photo of the results. These dam low res pictures deal me a fit....
 
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Hope all is well with everyone! I've been quite busy these past few days fixing, and replacing many items. I ended up having to totally replace the air horns, what a project that was removing all the window fascia.





Added our boat's name. Wife, and I are both Geminis.



Replacing the dash panels turned out to be a two day job, but well worth all the long hours of work.

Before



After





I still need to the wire up the new SIMRAD instruments, fix the front A/C, and the spot light. Luckily there's still tomorrow!!

We took our new 400 out two weeks ago spending the night on board, and enjoyed all the extra space we now have compared to our old 30' Sundancer!

 
Air O'Nautical said:
Cabin door needed to come off to make the opening just wide enough to get the stripped down Vitrifrigo into the cabin.


The slider is easy to remove with just a screwdriver.
Remove the four screws on the top and the three on the bottom.
Lift the door up and out.
Click to expand...

New to the thread, this is very encouraging to me. I want to replace my Norcold with a Vitrifrigo but could not figure out how to remove the sliding door to the cabin. It would give my 21 1/2 inches to get the old one out. You indicate that a stripped down Vitrifrigo could fit through that opening. 2 questions I have: the sliding glass door appears to fit into that sleeve between the top panel and the Fibreglass form under it. How do you get it out of the sleeve? You indicated to lift it up and out. Also, what model of Vitrifrigo and what did you strip out to get it to the dimensions that would fit thru the 21 1/2 inch opening. I have been fretting about this for over a year and only found this thread recently. Very helpful!!!!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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herring2on said:
New to the thread, this is very encouraging to me. I want to replace my Norcold with a Vitrifrigo but could not figure out how to remove the sliding door to the cabin. It would give my 21 1/2 inches to get the old one out. You indicate that a stripped down Vitrifrigo could fit through that opening. 2 questions I have: the sliding glass door appears to fit into that sleeve between the top panel and the Fibreglass form under it. How do you get it out of the sleeve? You indicated to lift it up and out. Also, what model of Vitrifrigo and what did you strip out to get it to the dimensions that would fit thru the 21 1/2 inch opening. I have been fretting about this for over a year and only found this thread recently. Very helpful!!!!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Just take the 4 screws out of the top and the 3(?) out of the bottom and lift the sliding door out and off the bottom sliding channel.
Just taking the doors off the fridge is necessary...then, it'll just barely fit through the door opening.
I also have the Vit 2600 installed.
It fits the same opening with no problems.
 
New topic.

Has anyone had issues with the middle and furthest aft battery not charging with engine AND OR charger? Replaced all 3 batteries this spring late April. Had boat in shop 1 day after batteries were installed where it sat for 6 weeks to get new canvas (That's a whole other sad story) and when I picked up boat two of the 3 batteries were nearly dead. Thought I might have parasitic draw. Charged battery bank but the green state of charge indicator would never get above red on these two batteries. The voltage of these two batteries was about .2-.4V lower than good battery. (AC Declo Type-29 Deep Cycles). Place where I bought batteries could not do load test on returned batteries as tester was malfunctioning. All battery mfg. date only 3 months old. Got two new batteries this last week Thursday. Ran boat for nearly 5 hours based on engine hour meters this weekend, so never felt the need to tie into shore power when moored as I don't use much DC AH throughout day. Sunday thought I would do a quick check on batteries before I left and indicators are black, indicating very low SOC. Will go out to boat tonight to start troubleshooting but something is not right here. Thought someone else might have had same issue. Last year ran boat with only two older deep cycles and never had issue like this. (Insert picture of monkey scratching his head). Batteries were on charger all night so I will see if they came back up to charge.

Will check obvious things like charger output, alternator output, emergency start solenoid, battery isolater diodes etc.
 
Last edited:
^^^^ Sorry to hear about your charging issuses.

Can anyone help with where to purchase some gel coat touch up? I have the part number from Sea Ray.
 
Hi all,
This is an awesome thread - I already learned a huge amount about my boat - thanks to all for sharing their experience.
I have a 95' 400 EC with repowered 502's. Family and I love her!

I have a couple of questions:
1. Does anyone have a smart way to route a 110v outlet in the cockpit? I found the outlet next to the ice maker outlet in the storage area under the cockpit passenger footwell, but can't see a good way to route a cable from their. Ideally I would like the outlet on the arch side above the icemaker?
2. Does the side panel by the bell (port side at end of salon sliding door) come off? I can get the s/board side one by the helm off easily but the port side does not seem to want to shift.

any help gratefully received, and I will also try to help where I can in future.....

Cheers,
Simon.
 
herring2on said:
New to the thread, this is very encouraging to me. I want to replace my Norcold with a Vitrifrigo but could not figure out how to remove the sliding door to the cabin. It would give my 21 1/2 inches to get the old one out. You indicate that a stripped down Vitrifrigo could fit through that opening. 2 questions I have: the sliding glass door appears to fit into that sleeve between the top panel and the Fibreglass form under it. How do you get it out of the sleeve? You indicated to lift it up and out. Also, what model of Vitrifrigo and what did you strip out to get it to the dimensions that would fit thru the 21 1/2 inch opening. I have been fretting about this for over a year and only found this thread recently. Very helpful!!!!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

To remove the door.
Slide it 99% closed. From the outside, take a Philips screw driver and remove the 4 screw on the top of the door and three screws at the bottom. Lift the whole door up and out of the bottom sliding channel. The entire door will now move towards the helm slightly and easily be removed.
Its honestly a 10 min job.

Just remove the doors on the new unit and it will squeeze through the opening.
I have a Vitrifrigo DP2600
 
Question - Did the 400EC's suffer from the similar exhaust issue as the 370's did with log mufflers and the Horizon motors? Or was this not a concern because the exhaust runs are so much longer due to the fact that the engines are further forward?

Thanks.
 
douglee25 said:
Question - Did the 400EC's suffer from the similar exhaust issue as the 370's did with log mufflers and the Horizon motors? Or was this not a concern because the exhaust runs are so much longer due to the fact that the engines are further forward?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

My 1994 does not use log mufflers. It has lift mufflers with dual inlets and one top outlet that feeds down to the exhaust outlet at the stern. It would be near impossible for water to flow back into the cylinders with this set up.
 
shc1971 said:
Hi all,
This is an awesome thread - I already learned a huge amount about my boat - thanks to all for sharing their experience.
I have a 95' 400 EC with repowered 502's. Family and I love her!

I have a couple of questions:
1. Does anyone have a smart way to route a 110v outlet in the cockpit? I found the outlet next to the ice maker outlet in the storage area under the cockpit passenger footwell, but can't see a good way to route a cable from their. Ideally I would like the outlet on the arch side above the icemaker?
2. Does the side panel by the bell (port side at end of salon sliding door) come off? I can get the s/board side one by the helm off easily but the port side does not seem to want to shift.

any help gratefully received, and I will also try to help where I can in future.....

Cheers,
Simon.
Click to expand...

Welcome aboard Simon!
The 502's must move the boat along nice. You may need to share some specs when you get a chance (cruise speed, top speed, rpm range, etc.)

I added two 110v outlets on the port side, one is on the arch to supply a tv I mounted on the arch and the second was added into the port side storage area that I use for lines. I ran the outlet in the arch from the outlet below the port side seats footrest. The other outlet was run from the outlet that feeds the refrigerator. The result for me is that each outlet is on a different circuit breaker (the top two breakers on the left side of the panel).

i believe that there are pictures of both of these on this thread. If you search it or look back you should be able to find them. If you can't, just ask and I will take some additional pictures and post them for you.

hope you have many happy years with your boat, we love ours!
 
GregM said:
New topic.

Has anyone had issues with the middle and furthest aft battery not charging with engine AND OR charger? Replaced all 3 batteries this spring late April. Had boat in shop 1 day after batteries were installed where it sat for 6 weeks to get new canvas (That's a whole other sad story) and when I picked up boat two of the 3 batteries were nearly dead. Thought I might have parasitic draw. Charged battery bank but the green state of charge indicator would never get above red on these two batteries. The voltage of these two batteries was about .2-.4V lower than good battery. (AC Declo Type-29 Deep Cycles). Place where I bought batteries could not do load test on returned batteries as tester was malfunctioning. All battery mfg. date only 3 months old. Got two new batteries this last week Thursday. Ran boat for nearly 5 hours based on engine hour meters this weekend, so never felt the need to tie into shore power when moored as I don't use much DC AH throughout day. Sunday thought I would do a quick check on batteries before I left and indicators are black, indicating very low SOC. Will go out to boat tonight to start troubleshooting but something is not right here. Thought someone else might have had same issue. Last year ran boat with only two older deep cycles and never had issue like this. (Insert picture of monkey scratching his head). Batteries were on charger all night so I will see if they came back up to charge.

Will check obvious things like charger output, alternator output, emergency start solenoid, battery isolater diodes etc.
Click to expand...

Could be something with the cables between the two house batteries and the charger/alternator. If memory serves me, the cable from the charger goes to the battery post on each bank of starting batteries and the generator battery switch. You may want to check the cable, then the switch and lastly the charger itself. My charger was going bad and stopped charging one of the banks, so I had to replace it.
 
shc1971 said:
Hi all,
This is an awesome thread - I already learned a huge amount about my boat - thanks to all for sharing their experience.
I have a 95' 400 EC with repowered 502's. Family and I love her!

I have a couple of questions:
1. Does anyone have a smart way to route a 110v outlet in the cockpit? I found the outlet next to the ice maker outlet in the storage area under the cockpit passenger footwell, but can't see a good way to route a cable from their. Ideally I would like the outlet on the arch side above the icemaker?
2. Does the side panel by the bell (port side at end of salon sliding door) come off? I can get the s/board side one by the helm off easily but the port side does not seem to want to shift.

any help gratefully received, and I will also try to help where I can in future.....

Cheers,
Simon.
Click to expand...

Pas to your #2, the panel should come out from the top first then lift out. There are 3 spring loaded rollers that hold the top of the panel in place. The springs in them could be rusty or stiff. It should pry out. Gentle persuasion with a screwdriver prying it off should work. Be careful not to rip the vinyl.
 
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