Here's how I did my install. This was copied from some other site.... The pics were no longer posted, and they are over a year old so I'll have to figure out which computer they are on and repost them here. I kept my existing transducer as a backup, so I ran new cables for the fish finder.
Ok the transducer cable is now ran from the console to outside the hull. Excuse the dirty boat pics, I detailed everything except under the swim deck (ran out of gas in the pressure washer) Wow, the pictures make it look much worse than it really is, I'm going to detail the area and replace these pictures for posterity!
I had a 1" diamond tipped hole saw used for drilling aquariums, and I used that to drill through the hull. I checked to make sure there wasn't any plywood backing at that point before I drilled and the saw cut through like butter (the diamond tipped saw won't cut through wood). Which actually is kind of scary when I stop to think about it, I would say it only took 10-15 seconds to have the hole in the hull. I drilled opposite of the scupper drain with plans of mounting the transducer to the right of the drain plug. Because I used the diamond hole saw, I didn't have a drill bit in the center so I have a nice round plug. I used my Dremel to make a cable sized notch in the plug and I plan on using 5200 to glue/seal the plug back in place.
At this point I still need to mount the transducer, seal the hole, configure the power, and bolt on the mount. My next question is, how did you guys power up your units? Did you run power cable all the way to the batteries? Did you tie into power at the dash? I'm leaning more to the idea of running the cable to the house battery, that seems more straight forward than powering off the dash and I am not electrically inclined. I saw that someone here installed a fuse box, and while that is an awesome idea, I'm not even going to attempt it! (I know my limits, and with ADHD, I'm not sure I have the attention span to do it correctly and safely)
Lessons learned so far, loosening one of the two bolts (shown in the first picture on page 1) allowed me to raise the dash cover enough to slide the cable through without adding an extra hole! Score huge Thank you's for RumDiet and davel501! Very clean, and very easy!
The next lesson learned was that even though I could barely fit a finger through the cable chase from the console through to the gas tank area, you can force the transducer through here. I think I was lucky because I had the fiberglass rod handy, a rope tied to the transducer may have put too much stress on the cable. I would wrap the transducer in saran wrap, then tape it to the pull rod, and then lube it up to it would slide through this space easily.
I was able to find an existing hole from the gas tank compartment to the engine compartment, and another from the engine compartment to the clean out area. So no additional holes had to be drilled.
Another lesson learned is remove the cover to the clean out compartment, that made this all so much easier. Seeing into the area around the plugs helped me understand where to drill my hole through the hull. Here I assumed that since the scupper drain was high and on the left of the center transom (?) (where the drain plug is located) I thought it would be safe to drill on the opposite side and at the same height. I think saving the plug and securing it back in place will make for a very water tight solution. I'll update this later after I've had the boat in the water a while.
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