Bought my first boat - '94 Echelon LX

[moffattra]

yeah.  he actually just reposted it, wants $300, but has had it for sale for at least a year

[nosnarb]

got the step pads done and I'm contemplating doing a fauxseadek pad inside of the taped area.

the #towmato goes in to get winterized on friday, so i guess my first boating season is over.  Im going to pull the exhaust manifolds and get them cleaned up, powder coated, and new gaskets installed.  I need to finish acquiring gauges for the dash before I tear into that.  Id like to replace the switch panel while im at it but that may have to wait. A stereo upgrade is also on the list, I put new Rockford Fosgate M162C's in the boat when I bought it but I feel like they need a little bit more power than the kenwood head unit puts out.  I'd also like to add a couple of speakers to the monster tower and a sub under the helm.  Ive got a 10" Rockford Fosgate P3 DVC sub laying around so I just need a box and an amp to drive it.  Anyone have a drawing for a sub enclosure for an echelon?

 

 

 

Edited April 22, 2018 by nosnarb

[Woodski]

@nosnarb:  Looks great, I like that material for the pads compared to the original plastic.  Well done coordinating with the floor.  Your pic seems to show the platform as dark grey, is that true or just a shadow making it look that way?  Winterizing already, heck up in 'southern canada' there is a month left in the season 

[powbmps]

That does look awesomw. 

Be sure to inspect the inside of the exhaust manifolds closely before you put any money into them.  Other than the obvious internal rust, both of mine had hairline cracks inside.  You could see it looking down into the lower portion of the manifold with a flashlight.  Replacements for that vintage are relatively inexpensive.

[nosnarb]

2 hours ago, Woodski said:

@nosnarb:  Looks great, I like that material for the pads compared to the original plastic.  Well done coordinating with the floor.  Your pic seems to show the platform as dark grey, is that true or just a shadow making it look that way?  Winterizing already, heck up in 'southern canada' there is a month left in the season 

Platform is in the shadow of the garage...its still teak and needs some serious TLC.....Im considering replacing that swim platform with a new one that is rhinolined and sea dek'd.  Problem with Oklahoma weather is that we dont get much of a transition from summer to fall to winter....temps and weather are all over the block this time of year.

2 hours ago, powbmps said:

That does look awesomw. 

Be sure to inspect the inside of the exhaust manifolds closely before you put any money into them.  Other than the obvious internal rust, both of mine had hairline cracks inside.  You could see it looking down into the lower portion of the manifold with a flashlight.  Replacements for that vintage are relatively inexpensive.

I will spend some time with a wirewheel on a dremel and some media blasting to clean it up first and then give it a good look over prior to spending any $$ on it.  If its noticeably cracked right off the bat I wont waste any time on it.

[Fabricator909]

On 10/11/2017 at 10:40 PM, nosnarb said:

got the step pads done and I'm contemplating doing a fauxseadek pad inside of the taped area.

the #towmato goes in to get winterized on friday, so i guess my first boating season is over.  Im going to pull the exhaust manifolds and get them cleaned up, powder coated, and new gaskets installed.  I need to finish acquiring gauges for the dash before I tear into that.  Id like to replace the switch panel while im at it but that may have to wait. A stereo upgrade is also on the list, I put new Rockford Fosgate M162C's in the boat when I bought it but I feel like they need a little bit more power than the kenwood head unit puts out.  I'd also like to add a couple of speakers to the monster tower and a sub under the helm.  Ive got a 10" Rockford Fosgate P3 DVC sub laying around so I just need a box and an amp to drive it.  Anyone have a drawing for a sub enclosure for an echelon?

 

Boat looks awesome!! Have you talked to Ron at skiboatpartsonline.com about gauges? I guess he owned American Skier, but now does parts only.He does complete gauge sets How does the faux teak seem to be holding up? I'm assuming you got it from one of the ebay sellers?

 

 

[nosnarb]

@Fabricator909  faux teak seems to be holding up well.  The dark grey gets a little warm under foot but no worse than the carpet.  I bought it directly from the manufacturer.  http://www.marinedeckfactory.com/

I have not contacted skiboatpartsonline.com but I will take a look.  Thanks for the heads up.

[nosnarb]

This may be a better post for the stereo section but for the sake of keeping everything neatly collected I'll start here.  I'm currently planning out a BUDGET MINDED (lol figured I'd set a ground rule first) addition to my stereo system.  At the end of last season, the wife stated that she thought it would be nice to add a couple of tower speakers to our set up so here we go:

My current stereo in the boat consists of:

Headunit:  Kenwood KMR-D362BT (22W x 4 RMS 50W x 4 peak)

and 4 in-boat 6-1/2's 2 in dash and 2 next to the rear seat:  Rockford Fosgate M162c (75w RMS, 150w peak, 4ohm)

I recently purchased:

a pair of 8" Kicker 43KM84LCW speakers (150W RMS, 300W peak, 4ohm) and some pods to mount on my wake board tower.

I currently have the following sitting in the garage collecting dust:

10" Rockford Fosgate P3D210 P3 DVC sub (400w RMS, 800w Peak, dual 2ohm)

12" Infinity Reference 1260W sub (300w RMS, 1,200w Peak, single 4ohm)

Kenwood KAC-6202 amp (60W x 2 @ 4ohm) (100W x 2 @ 2ohm) (200 W x 1 @ 4ohm)

Soundstorm Psyclone PSY4000D amp (1,050W x 1 RMS @ 4ohm)

The initial thought was to buy an 8 channel amp and use 4 channels to drive the in boat speakers and bridge 4 of the channels to 2 (it appears to support a 4.2 configuration) to power the two Kicker 8" tower speakers.  I would then use the Soundstorm monoblock amp to drive the 10" fosgate sub in a sealed enclosure at the helm.  The first concern I have about this set up is it looks like I am over powering the 10" fosgate sub....should I use the infinity sub instead?

Second thought was to leave the 4 fosgate M162c's on the head unit, use the kenwood KAC-6202 to power the 2 tower speakers....that would leave me with a 6 speaker system all of which are under powered and a sub which is over powered (I was actually looking for an emoji with flames)

Edit:  I suppose another option would be to run the front (dash) 6 1/2's off of the head unit, and then run the towers and the rear speakers off of a 6ch amp....basically bridging channels 1&2, 3&4 to drive the tower and channels 5 & 6 to drive the rear in boat speakers. I'm currently looking at the following amps:

Rockville RXM8BTB (65W x 8 RMS @ 4 ohm)

Rockville RXM-S6 (70W x 6 RMS @ 4 ohm)

Lanzar AQA830BTSL (300W x 8 RMS @ 4 Ohm) ?!

Lanzar HTG668BT (250W x 6 RMS @ 4 Ohm)

Pyle PLMRA830BT (100W x 6 + 250W x 2  RMS @ 4 Ohm)

Pyle PLMRA620 (100W x 4 +  250W x 2 RMS @ 4 ohm)

Pyle PLMRA630BT (similar to PLMRA620 but adds Bluetooth)

MB Quart NA540.6 (60W x 6 RMS @ 4 Ohms)

Im not sure I care about having bluetooth on the amp since the kenwood headunit has bluetooth

Last question, I've seen some posts about sub enclosures in the helms of echelons but unfortunately most of the pics dont load any longer or are on photobucket.  What sub enclosures have you guys used or do you have pics of custom ones you have built?

Edited January 6, 2018 by nosnarb

[nosnarb]

the wife was nice enough to set me up with a set of gauges for valentines day.  Next I will pull apart the dash panel and look into getting a new one made at one of the local custom plastics shops.  

Edited April 22, 2018 by nosnarb

[rugger]

Hmmm... the gauges and depth finder remind me of a project I did once.  Nice... always fun to put new toys in.  Better than maintenance.

[Michigan boarder]

10 hours ago, nosnarb said:

the wife was nice enough to set me up with a set of gauges for valentines day.  Next I will pull apart the dash panel and look into getting a new one made at one of the local custom plastics shops.  

And a rose too!  I think she likes you.

[nosnarb]

@Michigan boarder  lol!  yeah the rose was from her office.  I usually stick to jewelry, it helps to keep me out of the dog house.

[Pra4sno]

Really interested in your progress on this as I've been looking at a Faria GPS unit.  My airglides have finally given up the ghost - the pitots kept getting mineral build up, the tubes had cracked, and one of the airglide pistons had blown out - my guess is from the clogged tubes getting build up before winterizing.  

I've been following the faux sea deck conversion and it looks great.  If you happen to document the dash on the forums, I'll be glued to those updates as well.  My carpet is holding up well, but the gauges are a good one to tackle this spring for sure.  

 

[solorex]

Nice gauges.  I went with Livorsi several years ago for volt, oil, temp, oil pressure and still can't get my head around why the Livorsi GPS is $500 vs. the faria which is $90 for the speedometer.  Still have my stock speedo for now...

[Woodski]

@nosnarb:  very nice, your new dash will look awesome.  One item to consider as you do your layout, will you add speed control (Perfect Pass as an example) and how does that impact your layout.  Thumbs up to the significant other, looks like a keeper.

@Pra4sno:  do you have pressure or venture style pitot tubes, if pressure the venture style should fix your issues as they did mine and is a cheap fix.

[nosnarb]

@Woodski I will probably not add perfect pass however I agree that I could / should leave a space where it could be added later without having to re-replace the entire dash panel.  @Pra4sno plan is to keep the thread going as long as I own the boat.  Makes for an easy record for the next owner

[Pra4sno]

9 hours ago, Woodski said:

@nosnarb:  very nice, your new dash will look awesome.  One item to consider as you do your layout, will you add speed control (Perfect Pass as an example) and how does that impact your layout.  Thumbs up to the significant other, looks like a keeper.

@Pra4sno:  do you have pressure or venture style pitot tubes, if pressure the venture style should fix your issues as they did mine and is a cheap fix.

Not sure @Woodski, I have what looks like a small piston flanking my gas tank on both sides with tubes running in from the hull.  I was finding wet carpet in the back of the boat on one side and tracked it down to that piston looking thing having the top blown off.  

I capped them and we ran the boat another 2 months without Speedos, using the Rach.  

Can you describe the difference?  

Would love to keep the boat factory looking with the twin speedos.  I think they may have some issues as well; however.  Warmer weather and sunshine will help diagnose it more.

Edited February 18, 2018 by Pra4sno

[nosnarb]

Tore into the dash this afternoon, found a couple of hornets nest and learned that instead of fasteners you can glob on large amounts of silicone instead.  Several of the gauges were siliconed to the dash panel. The entire dash panel was then siliconed in place.  I marked the wires for each gauge and cleaned off the silicone.  The two speedos were faria replacement units so I tossed those in the trash along with the other gauges, which had yellowed and cracked lenses.  I did keep the computron display if anyone is interested in it.  I did light up and display the welcome message with the turn of the ignition key however it would display 0 after that.  Im assuming that is something wrong with the brain and not the display but I'm not 100% sure.  It is missing 2 of the mounting ears but evidently you can just silicone the thing in place.

Next step is to try a couple of the custom plastics places to see what they would charge to have a new panel made.

 

 

Edited April 22, 2018 by nosnarb

[nosnarb]

Heres the layout of the new dash.  

Im thinking the 4-1 multi gauge on the left, GPS speedo in the center and the tach on the right.  Im leaving the far right side blank for a future place to put a perfect pass, mount a cell phone etc.  I may try to find a malibu logo /badge to mount below the speedo too.

I will have a cad template of the existing dash at the end of this if anyone wants it.

 

 

 

Edited April 22, 2018 by nosnarb

[powbmps]

Would this be too big?

https://www.bakesonline.com/malibu-3-5-stainless-steel-dash-emblem.html

[nosnarb]

@powbmps  Ill mock it up and see...but thats right along the lines of what I was looking for.  I also found this guy on great lakes skipper:

https://greatlakesskipper.com/malibu-boat-decal-emblem-5550049-5-x-1-3-8-inch-aluminum

Heres the mocked up dash panel in place

Edited March 10, 2018 by nosnarb

[Woodski]

@Pra4sno:  Here is a link for the venture style pitot pickups:  www.skidim.com/searchprods.asp  (they are PN - 1804)  I think the item you are referring to is the brass plenum inside the boat, which acts as a pulse damper for the air pressure signal to the speedo.  It filled with water when the upstream part of the system started to leak thus not keeping the water from travelling up the system.  The venture pitots solve the problem.

@nosnarb:  Nice, you do want the PP system to be on right side as you have it drawn (that is standard location for tourney boats), you might consider swapping tach/speedo so when PP is installed, they are side by side.  If you don't want the Computron my boat has everything but the display if you are planning on disposing of it.

Edited March 12, 2018 by Woodski

[gt2003]

On ‎6‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 3:29 PM, Michigan boarder said:

You're on it!

On the rear seat, it should be a sheet of white plastic HDPE.  There is a front stringer (aluminum hollow rectangle stock) and a rear stringer (same material), with the front stringer a little taller so that it tilts the seat back a bit.  To brace it when in the sundeck position there is a strip of aluminum flat stock that is the width of the stringer that runs along the stringer and terminates at the end of the HDPE.  I think it runs along the stringer for 3 inches and then 3 inches past it, out towards the edge of the seat.  After a few years, I had a big guy sit on it while we were surfing and mine sagged.   I found that I actually had one missing, and the bolt/nut was falling out of another.  So I pulled it all off and cut new pieces of aluminum, a little wider and a little longer.  Solid as a rock now.

JK13 beat me to it!

I JUST bought a '96 Echelon.  The underside of my rear seat looks similar with clips for the stern light.  Are you saying that the seat will sit on top of the arm rests and make a sunbathing platform?  Do you have pics?  Hoping mine has this option as well.

[Michigan boarder]

39 minutes ago, gt2003 said:

I JUST bought a '96 Echelon.  The underside of my rear seat looks similar with clips for the stern light.  Are you saying that the seat will sit on top of the arm rests and make a sunbathing platform?  Do you have pics?  Hoping mine has this option as well.

Yep, that's correct.  I don't have any other pics.  But to move it into sundeck mode, you pull the rear seat forward, then lift/rotate the front edge up so it is standing vertically with the back of the seat on the floor (if you don't it will hit the engine cover), then lift up and set the back of the seat on the arm rests, then rotate the front edge down.  Boom - sun deck.  My wife loves that spot.  It's also great to hide some ballast bags under for surfing.

[Woodski]

@gt2003:  When you focus on slalom, remove it and leave on the dock to improve wake.  My rear seat has found a storage spot and simply collects dust, LOL, which also keeps it in great shape since nobody can now step on it which tears at the seams.  Although, I assume you appreciate the opportunity for the significant other to sunbath on the deck so leaving it in does have advantages.

I don't recall, does the 96 have a swivel seat back or the lift our version like the earlier models?