Instead of selling and buying a new boat I opted to go with just some updates to me 2013 PT 175TXW. One of the biggest things that always bothered me was the 8" or so of dead space from that angled panel that house the TM power plug and trim switch only. I liked it even less when I went to install a recessed TM peddle tray and the damn thing came back almost to the seat mount. What a lot of wasted deck space!?
Tracker was a little cheap here and didnt extend the deck to the downturn from the bow so first up was to cut a filler piece. Note: if I didnt plan to redue the carpet in the next year or 2 I would have spent more time getting a better fit. glued the carpet up to the filler piece and trimmed any excess carpet at the bow downturn. Now I was able to shift the TM tray up a good 8" from where it would have had to be.
Next up was addressing the downturn. You can buy Kydex sheets fairly inexpensively straight from ebay and the material is very durable and weather resistant. You can score it with a razor blade a few times and snap it like you would sheet rock/drywall and it dremels very easily for any intricate work. I cut a strip for both left and right sides and riveted them to the downturn. I made the middle section its own section to access the little opening in the downturn to access all the wires and horn stuff. I fastened that with your standard self tapping screws and painted the heads black to blend. Last step was running the power and transducer cable through it, a minute or 2 with a dremel sanding wheel gave a nice tight opening for the wires to pass through. I used one of the provided cable clamps from the Force kit to screw it to the deck and keep its position. TM wires are bolted to the wires coming up from the batteries (decided to go dedicated 6awg and kept the factory 8awg for a future bow unit) so no "plug" was needed, however if you wanted it would be easy to mount to the kydex piece.
Last item to address was the trim switch. I didnt take a close up of it but in the recessed tray there are two flat spots at the front. I drilled a hole and mounted it switch facing up. Now I can easily push or pull it with my toe (shoe or no shoe) no problem.
All in all it was a fairly easy job but I feel I was able to gain a lot by doing this little bit of work. Saw a new 175 at bass pro the other day and noticed they shortened up that front angle piece a lot, however I still think they could redesign it to get the most room and still keep the function they want.
Figured I'd share in case anyone wanted an easy little project for their boat!