2007 Ar230 how to run wire in tower?

[aarons1k]

@Aaron Stammet . The upper tower has a factory hole. I only drilled a hole for the size of wire I used for the lower tower ( maybe a little larger). I used wire that had a quick disconnect so I could remove the top tower if needed.

I strongly recommend using a vacuum to pull yarn thru tower first. If you see my pictures it should help. Let me know if you have any questions, I'm glad to help as this was a challenge because I could not find any information. (I worked at a car stereo shop for 10 yrs, about 15 yrs ago, and this was still a nice challenge - not straight forward)

Thanks , I will have to look for the factory hole in the upper . Does your Bimini top work with the tower speakers ? I haven't even decided which speakers I want yet... Lol this is def my next mod . Can you send me some closer pics of where you drilled the tower ? What kinda of speakers/amp did u go with ?

 

[Blazin14]

@Aaron Stammet Look at my posting on 4/11, its shows the all the holes I drilled, may need to save pic and zoom in. ( let me know if you still need a pic). This was my thought. I went with the Rockford fosgate M282 for several reasons. They look great and have a quick disconnect to remove from the tower, and the wire is encased inside, so no corrosion. For the Bimini problem, if is going to rain, I just quickly remove my speakers and put up my Bimini. Also if I plan on storing boat I can remove speaker as well. I don't use the Bimini for shade, if you need shade, don't come on my boat. (lol)

From an amp perspective, I went with a clarion XC1410, it was small, and I could mount it in cabin behind steering wheel and use factory power wire. Another factor is bigger the amp the more drain on your battery (I dont wana worry about this, while playing my music all day - I do have 2 battery's). I ran 2 channels to the M282 and other other 2 channel to the 4 cabin speakers (2 ohm stereo). This allowed me to fade from the tower speakers to the cabin speaker to balance out the sound. I can hear my boat crystal clear while sitting on the beach with extra volume if needed.

Oh yea, I kept my factor head unit (JBL) just added blue tooth and upgraded the transom remote. Sure beats spending 2-3K. (my cost about 550)

This is how I did it, may not work for others...

 

[jetboater4life]

the welded joints have a plug that goes to the inside dia of the tower rack a little over an inch deep

edit: a cut-n-paste from a post I made elsewhere...

I finally got around to installing the tow point navigation light this weekend. The assembly and instructions from Aaron are excellent. I wanted to add a few more details that may help anyone else doing it in the future.

I drilled the 3/4" diameter hole directly under the Navigation light. The end result looked nicely centered, but the angle of the drill to make a hole in the tower tube itself (inside) was a difficult angle. I drilled a 1/4" diameter which was too tight to snake the 4 wires thru, I followed it with a 5/16 diameter which was at risk of breaking thru the top weld. I would consider making the 3/4" hole more aft, making the secondary hole easier, possibly larger.

The next set of holes are drilled at the pivot point.

I wasn't sure how far in from the weld to drill that would allow me to clear the "plug"
The top hole was drilled 1 3/8 from the weld and cleared nicely., The lower hole I chanced it at 1" even and nicked the end of the plug...

This image is the final drill from the tower tube to thru the deck. I found a watertight feed thru that dressed it out nicely.

One thing to note: The run I made from the tower thru the boat should have been tighter to the mtg point, The mooring cover pulls on the wire more than I'd like.

To snake the wires thru the tower: a piece of tissue, fishing line and a vacuum worked nicely (tip from a member here). I did break one wire on the sharp edge of the inside hole, upon completion of the wiring I squeezed in some silicone to try and prevent movement or wear against those edges later.
Some of this may be redundant but I felt it important to identify the distance from the weld point, a misplaced drill bit could be dire.
All this was done on the Yamaha factory wake tower.

the feed thru : http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009TSAW2/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=Q1RSMFFN0RMG&coliid=I35D5JEBMVC4FB

light to plug the hole
http://www.amazon.com/Maxxima-M09300WCL-White-Courtesy-Marker/dp/B00L51ZYE0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418407006&sr=8-1&keywords=3/4" led light maxxima white

@justason Thanks for posting this great info for the 08-10 212x tower. I need to do the same thing as I have the light and adapter from Aaron. One question I have is about the light to plug the hole. I didn't see that in his instructions or your picture. Does it go on the bottom of the tower and is it wired to the courtesy lights?

 

[justason]

@justason Thanks for posting this great info for the 08-10 212x tower. I need to do the same thing as I have the light and adapter from Aaron. One question I have is about the light to plug the hole. I didn't see that in his instructions or your picture. Does it go on the bottom of the tower and is it wired to the courtesy lights?

Hi @jetboater4life glad you found it useful. The light to plug the hole is the black diameter shown in the above photo, perfectly under the navigation light. this hole is required (on my tower) to be able to drill up thru the post to install the nav light parts, also to drill (difficultly) in an angle from the hole into the aft tower pipe to dun wires. Its difficult and be watch your angle to be sure not to be high and break thru the weld. This detail may be from the seller (AARON?) instructions and I overlooked it here.

I ran 3 wires up the tower:
1. power to light that I wired into the stock navigation switch.
2. power to courtesy light that I gave a dedicated switch for on my dash. NOT part of general courtesy lights.
3. common ground wire for the two.



As an update to this effort: I might suggest drilling the holes in the tower slightly larger than what is required. I'm about to run an antenna wire and speakers wires up thru the tower. Since I'll use the same holes at the junctions I'll need to increase the diameters, making me remove the current wires and pull new ones when i add the newer ones........kind of a pain, we'll see.....

 

[aarons1k]

@Aaron Stammet . The upper tower has a factory hole. I only drilled a hole for the size of wire I used for the lower tower ( maybe a little larger). I used wire that had a quick disconnect so I could remove the top tower if needed.

I strongly recommend using a vacuum to pull yarn thru tower first. If you see my pictures it should help. Let me know if you have any questions, I'm glad to help as this was a challenge because I could not find any information. (I worked at a car stereo shop for 10 yrs, about 15 yrs ago, and this was still a nice challenge - not straight forward)

What type of quick disconnect did you use ?

 

[aarons1k]

the welded joints have a plug that goes to the inside dia of the tower rack a little over an inch deep

edit: a cut-n-paste from a post I made elsewhere...

I finally got around to installing the tow point navigation light this weekend. The assembly and instructions from Aaron are excellent. I wanted to add a few more details that may help anyone else doing it in the future.

I drilled the 3/4" diameter hole directly under the Navigation light. The end result looked nicely centered, but the angle of the drill to make a hole in the tower tube itself (inside) was a difficult angle. I drilled a 1/4" diameter which was too tight to snake the 4 wires thru, I followed it with a 5/16 diameter which was at risk of breaking thru the top weld. I would consider making the 3/4" hole more aft, making the secondary hole easier, possibly larger.

The next set of holes are drilled at the pivot point.

I wasn't sure how far in from the weld to drill that would allow me to clear the "plug"
The top hole was drilled 1 3/8 from the weld and cleared nicely., The lower hole I chanced it at 1" even and nicked the end of the plug...

This image is the final drill from the tower tube to thru the deck. I found a watertight feed thru that dressed it out nicely.

One thing to note: The run I made from the tower thru the boat should have been tighter to the mtg point, The mooring cover pulls on the wire more than I'd like.

To snake the wires thru the tower: a piece of tissue, fishing line and a vacuum worked nicely (tip from a member here). I did break one wire on the sharp edge of the inside hole, upon completion of the wiring I squeezed in some silicone to try and prevent movement or wear against those edges later.
Some of this may be redundant but I felt it important to identify the distance from the weld point, a misplaced drill bit could be dire.
All this was done on the Yamaha factory wake tower.

the feed thru : http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009TSAW2/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=Q1RSMFFN0RMG&coliid=I35D5JEBMVC4FB

light to plug the hole
http://www.amazon.com/Maxxima-M09300WCL-White-Courtesy-Marker/dp/B00L51ZYE0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418407006&sr=8-1&keywords=3/4" led light maxxima white

Where did the courtesy light go ? I'm confused ? And is Aaron a forum member ? I am in need for navigation light.

 

[justason]

@

Where did the courtesy light go ? I'm confused ? And is Aaron a forum member ? I am in need for navigation light.

Hi @aarons1k , based on your avatar image we have different towers. My tower needed a tooling hole to essentially turn a few right angle corners with the wiring thru different tubes that were welded together. I dont have a good image to share at this time.

Here is the original thread from elsewhere that i bought my nav light from

http://yamahajetboaters.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34524&hilit=tower+navigation+light+modification&start=105

 

[zipper]

tower wiring

• zipper
• Aug 17, 2016

antenna wiring between upper and lower towers

tower antenna mount

• zipper
• Aug 17, 2016

krypt speaker clamp and shakespeare hd ratchet mount

slag from inside tower

• zipper
• Aug 17, 2016

slag

I am half way thru a two antennae wake tower install...starboard side am/fm and port side vhf both 4' . After a few unproductive hours of yarn, string, twine, plastic bags and vacuum cleaners, decided to do it differently. pushed grass trimmer string the big stuff .105+ in. from hole to hole and retrieved it with a small custom bent hook to pull it out of the 1/2" hole. this works really well. the first time i ran the orange string thru it picked up the piece of slag that was snagging all all my previous attempts. I found this post extremely helpful on how and where to run the wiring with minimal exposures at antennae mounting locations and upper/lower tower connector only.

 

[Marvin willis]

Want to do this mod. Asking this question prematurely before I've never looked on top of my tower but why do you need an adapter? Why not screw it right to the plastic tow point? Also how much does the adapter cost? I haven't seen it posted anywhere

 

[jetboater4life]

I know this is a thread necro but I finally got around to installing my stern light to the top of my tower mount that I bought from AARON on the other forum (a long time ago!!!). I had to run 11 wires. 7 were in a very nice factory Yamaha harness and the other were just extra 18 gauge I had lying around. Of the 7 in the wiring harness(with a thru hull disconnect) I used 1 for stern light power, 1 for acc light power, 1 to ground them, and 4 for the speaker wires. The last four 18 gauge wires were for the RGB LEDs that came factory installed in the kicker 8s that I bought. So far I have the stern light working and the speakers. Paired with a Kicker 400.2 amp they project nicely across the lake or as my friend said concert style sound. The accessory light is not working so I need to pull out the rats nest of wires that went up into my 212x cross brace and see if something came apart. I did offset the 3/4 inch hole for the acc light and was able to get a 1/4 airplane bit to go through the tubing which I then reemed out with a 3/8 bit. Using the cotton ball and fire line method with the vacuum I was able to pull wires. By far the toughest wire to pull was the 3rd wire going in a 90 degree direction through the 3/8th hole inside the tower tubing. I had to wrap the electrical tape really thin to the first wire routed through so that it would fit. Note that after the first pull with the fire line I pulled enough wire through to use it back and forth for the other wires. 18gauge wire was better for pulling wires than fire line. I am still working on connecting up the LEDs and need to figure out another 4 pin through hull connector with disconnect (so my cover will go on nicely). I think I'm going to go with something like this... neutrik I will post some pictures when I have the LEDs working. They are controlled by the wireless kicker controller.