E32-3 foward running light

Yesterday I spent two hours trying to trace the wire to the running light on my bow pulpit. The wiring diagram says that the wires are gray (as opposed to the wiring for the optional LPG solenoid which is gray with white stripe)

At the bow pulpit the wires entering the light are black (ground) and gray with white stripe.

I belive that in the wiring bundle that goes foward that the plain gray is indeed the power to the running lights but cannot figure out where it goes after it enters the bulkhead for the head.

Any body have experiance tracing these wires?

In my 35-3 the wire is gray and runs up the port side. In the headliner above the Vberth just behind the forward bulkhead(forward of vberth) it is crimped to the black/gray and white wires that lead up through the aft most port side leg of the pulpit. You may be able to see this if you can cram your body into the cabinet in front of the vberth and look up and back to port.

I think the wiring diagram treats the bow light and the wiring run through the pulpit as a unit. So the wiring that is run through the boat should match what the diagram says and then connects to the bow light just inside the boat under the pulpit.

Thanks Tim

Now I feel more confident that I need to follow the gray wire, I am betting that the problem may be in that connection under the pulpit. Unfortunately there is no locker at the foward end of the v berth just a bulkhead. I think I need to remove the anchor well liner, (a winter project)

Charlie

No problem Charlie. Rebedding that anchor locker is probably well overdue. Not a fun job but necessary on our aging Ericsons.

C Masone said:

Thanks Tim

Now I feel more confident that I need to follow the gray wire, I am betting that the problem may be in that connection under the pulpit. Unfortunately there is no locker at the foward end of the v berth just a bulkhead. I think I need to remove the anchor well liner, (a winter project)

Charlie

Click to expand...

I have been thinking about this project and I am assuming that the drain at the bottom of the anchor well is attached to the port in the bow with a small piece of hose. I cannot get to the bottom of the anchor well without major interior surgery, however this bothers me that that connection cannot be examined.

Anyway, based on that, I would think the most logical solution would be to cut a hole in the anchor well near the aft connection of the bow pulpit, go in to fix it that way, and install an access port in the hole I created. Thoughts?

Excellent solution C. Even though I can get to the underside of the anchor locker via the Vberth I plan to add them to the sides of the anchor locker when needed. I already have an access port in mine in the forward area.

Tim indicated that the wires in question might lead up through the aft most port side leg of the pulpit. On my 32-200 the wires run above the headliner on the Starboard side and go up into the aft leg of the bow pulpit. To really get to this we had to remove some of the headliner. It is a bear to get back as neat as original. We also lifted the pulpit a bit and re-bedded it all. We were chasing a leak and managed to stop it. We also spread some epoxy around the aft upper starboard corner of the anchor well.

I realize the heads are at different ends of the our boats but I am guessing the v-births and anchor wells are the same.

Larry Lee
Savannah, GA
Annabel Lee
E-32-200

One leg or the other...

My guess, based on taking my bow pulpit off for rebedding, is that the location of the DC distribution panel determines which side of the boat the wires travel.
Our panel is on the port side, so the shortest route to the pulpit is up that side, right along the outer deck edge above the headliner. Black and gray wires, as I remember. They go up thru one of the pulpit legs, and the factory guys put a ton of sealant in the base chosen!
When I reinstalled the pulpit with new backing plates I had to re-route the wiring to the other side, due to a permanent plug of sealant I could never fully remove...

Ericson wanted to prevent leaks... and succeeded...


Loren

Tim...

Agree with Tim on the wiring. Mine is exactly the same, watch for any potential chafe issues running into the pulpit leg especially if it was pulled and re-bedded in the past, they can get pinched. You may want to rewire from the light into the boat, not sure if your having problems now?

Tim... funny you should mention the anchor drain project, I was pushing a softened shis-kabob stick up my bow drain this week because chain coating and galvanized flacks off my secondary danforth were impeding the drain line which is not all that big. Additional larger drains exiting the stb and port sides make a bunch of sense... also a little safer in the winter, the little OEM drain freezes quick.

My fix for bad ground

In our E32-3 the Fwd Running Light ground wire (black) was open and the light did not work correctly. The positive was OK as verified with a test jumper wire for a ground. After unsucessfully trying to locate the factory wired ground (ends up overhead in the V Berth as I remember) and fixing it I gave up. My fix was to ground the lamp into the bow pulpit railing and then ground the railing back to a known good ground where convienent. Been working good for 4 years now. Some of the ground wiring in these Ericsons is none too great. By that I mean they did not appear to use plated marine wire and did use lots of splices in ground wires. One of the challenges of older boats is keeping all this stuff working. Fun.

OEM - Standards of The time

My boat didn't have any tinned wire anywhere OEM. One postive note, you can always tell what a PO did for modifications. Also found a lot of auto type wire snap combiners, these must have been popular at one time before falling out of favor in the marine market. Standards change so do we... as we whittle away at upgrades.

Steve
e35-3 1984 #159

I finaly got around to this, all I did was pull the bow pulpit and there was the break, there was about 2 ft of excess wire stuffed into the pulpit so I just pulled it out cut out about a foot of cruddy wire, spliced it and now I can sail at night! I bought an access plate so I could cut through the anchor well if need be but I can return that to West Marine now.