Customizing 2023 25LSV - Stereo, ACR, Gatorstep

[Slurpee]

So lots of progress this weekend. Since I was going to be crawling around in the passenger storage a lot I got rid of those medieval battery control box bolts. 

No more gouging myself. 1 3/4” would have been a better length 3/8-16 bolt but 1 1/2” worked. 

Why Malibu uses too long bolts everywhere we’ll never know. 

[Slurpee]

Next I spent a LONG time crimping wires. I bought the LED version of the JL M6-880 because in for a penny in for a pound. I don’t plan on using them anytime soon. But I’m only running wires once. 

I used Molex Mizu P25 Mini connectors for all the 22 awg LED runs. Tiny little connectors. But they’re streamlined, sealed, latching and really small. 

I drive all my cabin speakers actively. But factory wiring bonds two speakers in parallel. So I reuse factory wiring for the bow and rearmost pairs of speakers. I run my own wiring for the two mid cabin pairs. 

As something new I also put white coaxials in the bow.  These speakers need another 1/8” or so than the factory cutouts. Luckily the plastic trim opens up easy with a box knife. The Fiberglass though needed me to make a template of the cutout. I used a router with a bushing and a carbide bit to cut and open up those. Breath masks are a must. 

And I spent a long time tying everything up neatly with Velcro straps. 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Slurpee

[Slurpee]

Then I moved on to my favorite part - the helm!

I’ll give Malibu credit. The wiring in the helm is much neater and streamlined than my past boats. I only needed minimal cleanup to make it nice and neat. 

This part began with removing the storage bin. Normally it’s the sport dash. I deleted that because I wasn’t inclined to pay $1k for something I was removing. 

Malibu why’d you remove soooo much material? 

Still, I got really lucky here. My custom milled plate and Fusion radio was nearly a perfect fit. Most importantly with all this missing material is the holes lined up by dumb luck. 

Before I secured the radio in place though I took the opportunity to loosen up the main display bolts. That gave me the room to drill a hole and pass the cable for the ScanGauge through cleanly. I used Velcro to secure it up on top and hid the wire down the back of the frame. 

You’ll also notice my iOttie phone holder on the windshield like I prefer. It’s within easy reach of my fingers without taking my hand off the throttle. But I upgraded this year to one that charges wirelessly. In case that fails or I want a USB connection for charging and data, I passed a lightning connector up near the cradle as well. 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Slurpee

[Slurpee]

There were some frustrating moments though. It’s disappointing, but I won’t be able to use my JL HO box with 12Wv6 underneath the side seats. 

There’s plenty of room down there. But the doorway -so to speak - is too small this time because of changes to the floor. 

 

I’m debating if I just want to run the gauntlet of my wife’s wrath and toss it in with the amps or build a new box that will fit or go without. 

Another disappointment is the factory elected to not rig the pass through hole for tower speaker wires. I guess that assembly line station drills that hole. Not rigging.  So no tower speakers on the order means no hole. When I decide how to handle that I’ll post of course. 

[Slurpee]

Oh, and if anyone wants to buy a pair of M6-880 with LEDs in white I’ll trade you for one with a graphite plate. Sadly I couldn’t buy 3 white and 5 graphite. 
 

[woods103]

Those M6's look real good in there, nice work! The fusion head unit is impressive as well. Hard to beat the look of JL marine in my opinion. Our Wet Sounds look awesome but JL has always caught my eye.

[wakesetta12]

All looks great.  You going to sell the takeoff stuff?  I might be interested if it'd fit a 12' lsv 23

[hethj7]

On 4/13/2023 at 6:07 PM, wakesetta12 said:

All looks great.  You going to sell the takeoff stuff?  I might be interested if it'd fit a 12' lsv 23

I think there is very little taken off as he ordered the boat with most (all?) of the stereo deleted.  

[Slurpee]

I want to apologize to Malibu and walk back my statement that they didn’t drill a hole for tower speaker wires. They did. It just was a bit bad luck that one layer of glass flapped back in place and hid the hole from touch. But it’s there! Thank goodness. That’s a small target to hit blind. 

So wires for the tower are in. In retrospect, too many wires, but I guess I got them all in. Four pair of jacketed 16awg and four jacketed RGB 24awg bundles. Key item here is lube. 

Drilling these holes in aluminum towers is always an adventure. Go grab a 1/4” carbide bit with good tempering and start with that. Then use a good unibit with two flutes (cutting edges) to open it up more. Really hot metal is going to be shaving off so put a towel over the vinyl below and hang a bucket underneath!

Also, don’t just hold onto that drill with your wrist! Put an arm lock on it with your other arm. When that Unibit changes steps it will take the drill out of your hand and go flying otherwise.

Lots of guests showed so I didn’t finish today, but we’re close to tower speakers!

Edited April 16, 2023 by Slurpee

[Slurpee]

Tower Speaker day!

lesson 1 - make the holes bigger than you think you need in the tower. (Check) then make them even bigger. ( Next Time). 

But they look good!

 

[ahopkins22LSV]

I’m confused, and or missed it - how does the bimini work with the tower speakers on top like that?

[Slurpee]

Zippers. I take the Bimini down about once a year or less often. It lives under an over the tower cover. And the speakers sound so much better. More clear.  And a lot less power needed without the Bimini in the way bouncing the sound into the cabin and the wash.  But definitely not OEM.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Slurpee

[Slurpee]

I’ve been rushing to find time to get the tower speakers on so I can get the boat to the canvas shop for them to make the cover and a custom Bimini for those speakers.  I should be taking it to them Tuesday. Finally. Yay. It’ll be gone a couple weeks, but on the plus side the Gatorstep should be imminent by then.  And I’ll have the new subs and amp board built.

For all the canvas I picked Weathermax 80 material.  They said they’ve been having issues with Aqualon fabric quality control.  Shame because it was a good choice in 2019.

 I’m borrowing a cover from my awesome dealer Tommy’s Ft.Worth in the meantime, and I don’t like to impose. So, I want to get it all done and the cover back to them asap.

On my 2001 we had a towerbiminis.com Bimini in the Titan tower that had white stripes bordering a maroon center band with the sides black. I was asking the CFO tonight while we were urging on hours cruising about doing something like that again.  We’re thinking Navy blue instead of black with some white Camaro racing stripes lined up with the white tower speakers on either side! 8)

Kind of the inverse of this. 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Slurpee

[Slurpee]

I’ll let the picture speak for itself. 

[REHinH20]

Very nice, but I'm also intrigued by the concrete treatment under it!!  Do share!

[Slurpee]

39 minutes ago, REHinH20 said:

Very nice, but I'm also intrigued by the concrete treatment under it!!  Do share!

Cool Deck by SunDek around my pool.  

[MLA]

On 4/15/2023 at 9:00 PM, Slurpee said:

Four pair of jacketed 16awg and four jacketed RGB 24awg bundles. Key item here is lube. 

A single 4-conductor 12ga would service all 4 pods. However and a single 4-conn 18ga for all 4 RGB LEDs. 

[Slurpee]

37 minutes ago, MLA said:

A single 4-conductor 12ga would service all 4 pods. However and a single 4-conn 18ga for all 4 RGB LEDs. 

Lol. So true.  I wouldn’t have used so many pairs if I’d looked at that tiny slot first. I do run the speakers in parallel. So I should have bonded those before the tower. The lights I do plan on driving as pixels one day. Not as a whole zone. But they’re only 24awg.  Lots smaller than 18awg. They weren’t the hogs.  

Just one more thing to put on the, “do it better next time” list. 

[MLA]

With a 12ga for a pair, you can make a parallel splice in the tower close to the pods and use 14ga for the short distance. 

For the LEDs, if you want all 4 on a different zone/mode, then yeah, 4 24ga is the only way. Or 2 22ga for each side. But to have all 4 pods on the same zone/mode, a single 18ga will do and is a smaller cross-section then four 24 ga. 

[Slurpee]

That’s exactly right. I agree. I already had the wiring harness tied in from the amp board to under the tower with four pair from my last boat. I just got carried away running the wires. 4 pair actually fit just fine so I didn’t think about it. It was when I started adding even more jackets for the LEDs I realized it was too tight. Bonding the pairs like you describe is the best method. 

[Slurpee]

Reality is I have 10awg pairs x4 running from the rack to the base of the tower. So some 16awg running 8’ is no biggee.

I ran all those 10awg pairs straight to the pods on the last boat. They barely fit. And it was pointless for just M880s. I was wiring for potential 12” pods back then though. At least that’s my excuse. Hah.

Knowing I was going to do LEDs this time (maybe) and stay with the same size coaxials, I reduced that to 16 awg to fit what I thought was the window. It was smaller than I figured. Thank goodness for lube. 

The right way to do it next time is bonding the wires like you described and being thicker gauge and/or just easier to wire. 

You raised really good points for everyone reading. Thanks!

Edited April 20, 2023 by Slurpee

[Slurpee]

Howdy. We’ve not posted some pics for a minute. The boat has been at the canvas shop for a few weeks. But I got some sneak peaks a minute ago. I can not say enough good things about Dallas Canvas and Boat Tops. 

We went with some white racing stripes to complement the two pair of white JL tower speakers.  

[dwc032]

Very cool build. I re-did my stereo also, I cant believe I had to with as much as these boats cost....lol My next boat will have a stereo delete. I get the sounding better for the tower speakers, but just cant get used to them being up top like that.   

Edited May 11, 2023 by dwc032

[Slurpee]

2 hours ago, dwc032 said:

Very cool build. I re-did my stereo also, I cant believe I had to with as much as these boats cost....lol My next boat will have a stereo delete. I get the sounding better for the tower speakers, but just cant get used to them being up top like that.   

I understand.  The biggeste problem was getting the bimini up and down with them up there.  With this one we did a better job with the zippers and I can vouch for it only being a bit harder than regular now.  Maybe an extra 20 seconds of work while you push canvas around the speakers.

[Slurpee]

Yay! It didn’t rain today. So awesome time to put in the flooring now that it’s back from the canvas shop. Have a look! Also, bonus pic of the custom Bimini extension deployed. 

I have to say I love the Gatorstep ability to peel it off and reapply if you need to tweak something. Once you go to town with a roller though that does get a bit more sketchy. If still doable.

I’m definitely doing this again. I’m going to get some more pieces made here and there soon. 

1) Behind the drivers seat on the closet

2) Behind the grab bars in the bow next to the speakers. 

3) subwoofer grill when it’s done maybe. 
 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Slurpee