Credit to cyclops, his post inspired me to give this a try. Would have taken me 2.5-3 hours, but I took a couple breaks to grab a beer and check on the kids, and spent a good 1.5 hours trying to get a ratchet I dropped and couldn’t reach. (More to follow).
If you have a twin engine boat, access to the transducer is the biggest problem. The starboard waterbox sits right over the keel, making it impossible to get at the transducer without moving some stuff. First, get a beer, the pull the access tray, then unscrew the larger tray that covers the entire rear bilge of the boat. Undo the rubber straps for the water box, and loosen the hose clamp where the exhaust exits the water box. (I couldn’t get this hose off the water box, it was stuck pretty good, with the current parts shortages and my laziness I didn’t push the issue) Next open your engine bay and find the transducer cable, it connects where a bunch of connections are above the starboard engine. I cut a pretty good length from the connector so I got plenty of wire to work with for any future repairs. Loosen the hose clamp on the starboard exhaust where it goes through the back of the engine compartment. Grab another beer, take the old transducer cable you just cut, and a new NMEA extension (1.5 ft works just fine) and splice them together. Pretty simple, match the color wires, heat shrink connectors (18-22 gauge) and splice away. Finish your beer and grab another, it’s about to get painful. You have to finagle that water box around so you can access the old transducer, it’s a real PITA, once you have it situated, cut the safety wire on the old transducer, unscrew the cap, pull the old one out, put the new one in, tighten down the cap, safety wire it down, and run your wires. Put the water box back, tighten all your hose clamps, clean and then re seal the clean out hatch, and you should be done. After resealing the access tray, I was tightening the hose clamps that hold the clean out tubes to the tray, and dropped a ratchet, it went under the waterbox as far forward as it could. Being stubborn and fresh out of 4200, I didn’t want to pull the big tray back up and move the water box again, so using my phone camera to see, and a lot of awkward bending and reaching, I was able to retrieve the ratchet. This was by far the longest part of the project.
Transducer comm error is now gone, so at least it’s fixed. I’m sure I could have saved $300 and had it done under warranty, but I didn’t want to wait for back ordered parts, wait for appointments at the dealership, drive back and forth, etc.
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