how to NOT piss off your installer!!!
 

OK, some of you know i was working on another dash project as of late......it was a 32' Black Thunder. Well it was a friends boat and he decided to take it upon himself to "help me out" and start the de-installation process before i could even look at anything. As you can imagine, he doesnt knwo anything about wiring and did it the way he thought best! :eek: This is what i was greeted with!!! :mad: As you can see i already installed the upper dash panel.....which was almost as bad but i didnt think to take a pic at the time!

another view:

none...and i mean NONE of the wires were labled!!! And there were even wire cut that i had no idea where they went! :mad:
when i asked him what the deal was his responce...."i thought we woudl re-wire it all"..........we? WE?!? AARRGGHH!! .....took me an extra 2 hours just to trace down wires i had no idea what they did cause half the stuff didnt work in the first place!!! Have any idea how much a pain in the ass it is to put power to a wire and not have anything turn on? then have to take just about everything appart to see if thats what is supposed to be on!?!? damn was i pissed off!!! I think i called him every name in the book and invented a few new ones!!!
Well heres another pic of why you should have good connectors on all your terminals!

Sounds like Mr. A is in big big trouble huh?

Dean

well if you are lucky....that mess may turn out a bit better and look something like this when done......even though i should have just torn it all out and started from scratch i was too involved with tracing stuff down to turn back!

:)

:D

and the almost finnished product....just waiting for standoffs for the drive/trim indicators to button it all up. :D

WOW Wally! That was some mangled pile of spaghetti! It sure came out beautiful! Nice work!:)

What is the old saying... its $100 if I do the job and $200 if you help....sounds like this is the perfect case!

looks pretty trick!

the origonal spaghetti tangle was pretty ugly!

We all know he was just trying to help....but.....he really should've left it alone.
When I bought my '66 Shelby GT350 the instrument panel asn't original. It was just a piece of black painted aluminum with Stewart-Warner gauges installed, most of which weren't working. I pulled the panel to take a look and screamed. The previous owner didn't bother to pull the connectors he just cut all the wires going to the original gauges. :hothead: :hothead: I spend several hours tracing and labeling wires.

BTW, nice job. Looks neat and orderly.

Wally!

Looks great!! I'm sure you had your thinking cap on, on this one!!

Nice work Wally. If all it took you was two hours to figure out that mess you should be proud.
I was ''straightening out'' a few wiring problems on a friends 55 chevy a few years back,when halfway through the straightening out process,I figured out that it would have been eaisier to start from scratch. By that time I was past the point of no return and kept on. He hasn`t had any problems scince so I guess it turned out ok.

Roger1, i should have known better and did it from scratch when i saw the mess.....but i thought it wouldnt be soo bad since i have a degree in electronics and chaseing down wiring problems is not that bad for me......the turning point came after i had the cocpit lights out, the VHF out, the stereo out, the nav lights out and none were working cause of blown bulbs, or no grounds, or dead stereos......but it was too late cause i had all the gauges hooked up allready! oh woh is me! :D