Nice work

I've also made some good progress on my rear bench. I ended up pulling apart the old bench and tracing the panels as templates. I'm not much of a woodworker, I hate it actually. I much prefer fabricating steel, but it is coming together and I will probably be coating this thing in Spar Polyurethane this week before finding a local upholtery shop to put some new vinyl on it. One thing I am going to try to do is find a cooler that will fit on either side of the large main opening so I can pull the side pads for cooler access. Otherwise, this is built exactly the same as the unit it is replacing. I thought about trying to integrate some subwoofer boxes under the seat, but it got too complicated and I was spinning my wheels so I forced myself to keep is simple so I could move forward.

duplicate post edit.

Don't know why on my end only half of your pics show up?

I'd love to see them as I'm doing some of the same things you're doing to my 240 Islander.

That's strange. They all show up on my PC and my iPhone. What are you using to view the thread?

Got any pics of your boat? Love to see another 240, I've only found a handful of pics online of other 240 islanders.

Been putting in some hours trying to get things functional for Desert Storm. These damn projects always take longer than expected. Most of that is the research aspect trying to figure out the right way to do things or the right parts so I'm not doing a bunch of trial and error.

First off, some misc stuff. I finished up re-routing/cleaning up all of my wiring from the engine compartment back up to the helm. All the switches were in new locations so a little wire management was necessary and it all turned out very clean. Nothing fancy to show, just one of those time consuming tasks no-one but you will see, but now I know the function of every single wire from the motor to the helm, so I think it was time well spent.

I didn't like the location of the stock placement of the Dana throttle, it was too far back. The cool think about these controls is there are a ton of adjustment options. I disassembled the arms on the rear of the controls and was able to clock the throttle forward.

Before:



After:



I wish that the throttle orientation would match the orientation of the shifter control, but I can deal with the aesthetics, its a much more comfortable setup.

The old side vents were cracked and badly yellowed. I found some new vents on Great Lakes Skipper (I've spent a good chuck of change there at this point. Great products, may need a little cleaning, but they have A LOT of stuff available). I figured these vents were standard size, that would make sense right? Just make it an industry standard. Nope, had to drill 3 new holes. Oh well, it looks much better.

Old:



New:




I finally had the boat out in the sun since the upgrades to the dash. It looks so good, I just can't not share some more pictures.





And if you were following along earlier, here is the finishing touch to the dash upgrades. This came from Great Lakes Skipper as well. Unfortunately this picture shows off some of the amateur wrinkles from my carbon fiber wrap job....

Next up over the weekend was continuation of the stereo install. First off, I built some brackets to install my equailizer. I found the perfect spot for it, out of the way yet easily accessible.







Next up was building the sub boxes. I ended up with a sealed volume of 1.35 ft3. The manufacturer recomended 1ft3 for a compact sealed enclosure and with the space I had and the area I wanted to fill with these boxes, that's where I ended up. It is essnetially a rectangular cube, taller than it is wide, and the sides are designed to follow the contour of the side of the boat. There is a little pocket between the rear wall and the side of the boat that will be used for storage of small, very seldom used items - safety gear like first aid kit, flares, extra sunscreen, portable battery backup/jump start pack, etc. I mocked the box up in cardboard first and then drew out all the panels in CAD. Turned out OK for my first real carpentry project.

I used t-nuts for securing the woofers to the face and I did disassemble everything and glue all of the seams using some Loctite 375 construction adhesive. I purchased some speaker connectors from Amazon that had good reviews and installed in the top of the boxes to keep the rear storage area free of wires.

The final project for the weekend was building the amp rack. The best place I could come up with was on the front bulkhead under the helm. I build a plywood mounting plate and pre-drilled the mounting holes for the amps and installed t-nuts onto the back. I then pre-drilled and laid out the mounting holes with t-nuts for securing the wood to the bulkhead. The little piece on the lower right side is where my distribution/fuse block will be mounted for my ground & power leads. At this time, everything is going to stay bare. I just have too much ahead of me to get this thing onto the water for the 28th. I still have to run all the wires for the stereo & speakers, finish the fabrication and install of my rear bench which isn't going to get covered either (only polyurethane treatment at this point in time), install my new starter which is on it's way, install my new batteries for the stereo, associated battery wiring and switch installation, and then re-install the rear hatch. I've got a busy weekend coming up!

t-nuts for mounting to bulkhead



t-nuts for mounting amps



crappy low light iphone pic of install





That's all for now!

I've tried viewing them on Firefox, Chrome and my iphone and still only about half of them show up.

If you ever have the time maybe you could email them to me as I'd love to see them.

You're correct, the 240 Islanders seem to be pretty rare. I only have a couple pics of mine on this computer.