2001 Charger 395 TF full restoration

[01Charger]

A little back story on why I'm restoring and not buying new. Me and my Dad went and picked this boat up around 10-11 years ago. He got sick with ALS and passed away almost 6 years ago when I was 24. Theres a few things that I don't like about it now after fishing out of it since then but I believe I can correct those issues. I just can't bring myself to getting rid of it. I know its going to be a good bit of money and time but worth it in the end.

Im doing a full restoration on the boat. Carpet, seats, gel coat, wiring, all electronics, trolling motor and new trailer. Doing everything I can on my own. Having someone spray the gel and do some custom glass work. Tennessee trailer is going to build a custom trailer. Trailer is hopefully going to start getting built next week. I will be posting the process in here as it goes along. If anyone sees something I'm doing wrong or some helpful tips please comment and let me know.

[01Charger]

Got the wiring completely gutted today beside the yamaha wiring harness. Just gonna leave it routed. Probably add some braided wire loom where it comes out under the console. The switch panel was ridiculous. Going to switch over from the rocker switch type to the rotary like I've seen on some phoenix boats. Going back with 12 awg to the console for main power. May even go up to 10, I already have 12 stranded though. And also the 10 or 12 from the console to the bow panel. All on blue sea's fuse panel. Also going with just a screw terminal style common block. Dielectric grease on all terminations and heat shrink terminals

[JohnnyO]

Post a picture of the before boat itself

[01Charger]

Post a picture of the before boat itself

Added to the original post

[01Charger]

Most of the top cap is in this condition. As if it had been sprayed with clear coat. As for the area where the net is in the picture I'm going to have the guy spraying the gel coat glass that in to give me more storage and install a cooler/step there. Thats the biggest downfall of the boat is the front deck storage. It will give me every bit of room I need for 3700 boxes. And since I'm gonna go with bucket seats and a center console my cooler will be gone

[rojoguio]

Welcome to the world of Restoration. You will love it when done. Go up to 10ga DC Tinned wire for your console supply min. I personally run a shielded pair 8ga. Your boat's original wiring didn't take into consideration today's electronics power requirements. If possible route trolling motor wiring on opposite side of boat due to induction. A single stereo / amp can need considerable amperage without the voltage drop. My E-Tec puts up a lot of noise when running so without clean supply voltage my Humminbird's while Side Imaging can get grainy.

[BloodRiverBandit]

Looks like you have a good base to start with. Looking forward to watching the progress. Poor girl spent some time outside it looks like

[KYRANGERMAN]

Following. My Mom passed from ALS almost 20 years ago. Dad had two Charger boats, a 495 and a 595. Good luck.

[01Charger]

Welcome to the world of Restoration. You will love it when done. Go up to 10ga DC Tinned wire for your console supply min. I personally run a shielded pair 8ga. Your boat's original wiring didn't take into consideration today's electronics power requirements. If possible route trolling motor wiring on opposite side of boat due to induction. A single stereo / amp can need considerable amperage without the voltage drop. My E-Tec puts up a lot of noise when running so without clean supply voltage my Humminbird's while Side Imaging can get grainy.

Thanks everyone for the tips. Trolling motor wiring is already ran down the passenger side of the boat. With the graphs I plan on going with a second battery possibly lithium to power them since I'm going with 360 and livescope. What would be the best option for that? Thats why I was going with 12awg for the supply power

[rojoguio]

Livescope yes, 360 no, Humminbird has some new "equipment" on the horizon. 360's will get cheap for the "new to me" crowd. You do know the transducers get their own power right? Also if you end up installing a "2000 Backbone" it gets it's power too, plotter power wires are getting bigger and bigger, read up on the wattage drawn by the equipment your interested in. Nobody ever does that first. In a DC circuit wattage adds so add them all up then check your length of Power Distribution wire needed. From there I think you will find a 12ga wire is lacking, too little cross sectional area. Plotters, stereos, even trolling motors "bluetooth" extra load that was not there just a few years ago. Write out on paper what you want equipment wise, look up the load. Bait pumps, bilge pumps, recirculating pumps, lights, etc. I was running 4 Odyssey 925's to isolate the E-Tec noise from the Big Humminbird. Well you're saying the same thing. Here is the rub, if you use a dual bank battery charger to charge the separate batteries the noise passes through the charger. Chargers don't have protections for that. I scratched my head before running tests with my scope, scope found the path. If you isolate with a separate battery you need separate chargers too. I ended up doing that. Yamaha engines don't seem to do it and I have no clue about Mercury, nobody runs them around here. If you need advice, post the questions up here so others can benefit from the challenges you tackle and overcome.

[01Charger]

Rojo. My equipment list is going to be a solix 15 and a garmin 93sv that I already have at the console, solix 12 with 360 at the bow and garmin ultra 126 I believe at the bow. I was hoping to power all off of a lithium battery with a separate lithium charger. The only other thing I'm going to be adding is a livewell pump out and deck/compartment leds my main circuit. Which probably won't add anything since I'm removing my graphs (3) from my original circuit. Currently running a group 31 Duracell agm cranking and have had no issues with that. I've seen some 48ah lithium batteries but have not added everything up to see the power consumption yet and know that they will work

[rojoguio]

Not knocking the "Lits" but if you look at the Ah of Odyssey extreme batteries along with their respective weights and costs I stayed with Odysseys. Been buying mine at Battery Mart when they throw the sale on. Tomorrow I'm installing a 126xsv / Livescope / With very custom RojoGuio new Saltwater Livescope pole I've come up with on a 24ft Center console. I really like the 126. Take a look at everything you listed and add up the wattage for everything. Volts X Amps = Watts. The lower the voltage amperage increases. Lits do give till toast that's a good thing but larger power distribution wires will be needed. It's a new world, power hungry equipment is tough on one battery. I wired my two bow units to the starting battery and the one Helix 10 to the extra battery to split the load. The Garmins have the wifi turned off but they still draw a bit. They are on a PC1500 Odyssey now.

[01Charger]

I was looking at this lithium battery since I'm out of room for a full size group 31 battery. This could be stored in a compartment and still have room for storage.
https://ampedoutdoors.com/collection...c-with-charger
I added it up and I believe I'm at roughly 103 watts? I'm assuming from what I've looked up the amp draw from others it is amo hours. Going off of that I may be a little lower due to the higher voltage that battery puts out. Anybody running one or know anything about this company

[01Charger]

Been a few days but I'm making a little progress between work days. Got my wiring harness ran from the console to the bilge. Gotta clean the bilge a little and separate pump wires and it will be good to go other than maybe installing a livewell pump out. Rotary switches are on their way. I've started on the dash too. Instead of having multiple gauge holes im just going with the 2 digital yamaha gauges I had moved all of the way to the outside of each side of the dash. Center will be saved for a custom graph mount that I have to figure out.

In order to move the gauges I had to fiberglass the back side of the existing to give me a base to drill holes into, plus it beefed it up some too. I used 3 layers of glass mat and the 3m glass resin. May try using more glass depending on how it feels once fully cured. Also waiting on my 3 3/8 hole saw to come in

[01Charger]

Got my switch panel made today. The wrap isn't beautiful on the back side but it will work. Got my jumpers made up from the main power on switch. Going to have new stickers made for what each switches function is. I think I'm going to like these alot better than the rocker style. Using 12 gauge wiring for all of my jumpers. For each pump I'm going to have an inline fuse before the main wire feeding the pump. That way I don't have to dig in the bilge compartment to find which one is which. Next step is my gauge panel and making a dual mount for my graphs. Haven't completely figured that part out yet. The switches will all be square with each other before install btw

[01Charger]

Gauge panel is almost complete too. All done out of lexan. After I used the fiberglass to strengthen the back of the dash I took the woodgrain cover and clamped to my piece of lexan, traced it out and cut the shape. I then clamped to the plastic part of the dash and measured in and up equally on each side and used a 3 3/8 hole saw to cut the 2 gauge holes. This should leave me enough room for a graph mount in the center that I will thru bolt and mount both graphs when I get them. Carbon fiber wrap and a heat gun to finish it off. Looks great IMO. Water pressure gauge is moving down beside the steering wheel as I don't constantly watch it but just check it periodically throughout the day. Before and after pics down below

[fort83]

Love this!! How are the gauges wired different from the standard ones?

[fort83]

Love this!! How are the gauges wired different from the standard ones? Does the master switch do away with the second key? Taking a quick look at my setup that looks about all the 2nd key does

[01Charger]

It does. Gonna have a separate switch for bow panel and the electronics on a separate switch and battery to a fuse panel

[01Charger]

Love this!! How are the gauges wired different from the standard ones? Does the master switch do away with the second key? Taking a quick look at my setup that looks about all the 2nd key does

As for the gauges being different I'm not entirely sure as they came with the boat. Entire thing is just on a harness. All I did was rip out the boat wiring harness and leave the engine harness laying to the side