BellBoy help. please!!

[BellBoyBob]

Hi all:

I am working on the fuel gauge sender and stereo speaker wire routing from one side of the boat to the other. I have found that it would be least conspicuous if I routed the wires through the head box, then under the floor to the sink cabinet and finally connect to the radio that is mounted on the port side sink cabinet. The question is this: I will have to drill through the left and right keel stringers to get the wires to pass. I was going to use a 1/2" bit.
I have never exposed the stringers in my boat but I know you other 404 owners have. Is there any down side to drilling a hole that diameter transversely through the stringers?
What do you think?

Thanks,

bob

Bob

I think I'd be looking at running them under the gunwale up one side and around the front and back under the other side. I have cut the top off my center stringer and found a long piece of wood tapered from about 1/2" thick at the bulkhead to nothing at the bow end and glassed over I imagine to get the floor level. The way the glass was laid over the stringer there was no indication of this until I cut into it with a hole saw to get the water out that had worked its way through the screw holes over the years. Barry

Another idea. Instead of trying to put the wires under the floor a simple way would be to use a short piece of molding along the floor between the cabinets on both sides and up against the bulhead. A molding that leaves a hollow behind it would allow the wires also to be routed behind it and making them easily accessible from inside either cabinet. ???

[BellBoyBob]

Barry:

I would be actually utilizing your idea of a routed out piece of molding (on the underside) that I am laying on the cabin floor right under the door in the back of the cabin at the bulkhead. In the 404, you step down cir. 3" from the cockpit floor level to the cabin floor level, right? So the sides of the stringers create a "wall" on either side of the cabin floor. That's where I would be drilling the 1/2" hole to rout the wires. The wires would enter in the head box floor on the starboard side, go across the cabin floor through the stringers and exit through a hole cut in the sink cabinet on the port side to the radio. Would that much of a hole weaken the stringer, do you think? If the stringers are covered in glass (I've never seen them), the hole would then expose the stringer to water. That's my dilemma. When I get home tonight, I will take some pictures and put them up so you can see exactly what I mean.
Thanks,
Bob

Bob
I don't think you would weaken the stringers but you would leave them open to water getting in if you flooded your cabin. Planning to flood your cabin? Actually the water in mine ran up the stringers from the tansom. That will no longer be an issue once I get the new floor glassed in.
Seems like a half inch hole is a little big? I'd have to see pictures but do you have room to run the same molding vertical up the corners of the cabinets and bulkhead? Do you have a frame around the door that could be routed out on the backside? Gotta be a way.

[BellBoyBob]

Yes, I could do it that way and just might, too. I could mold off the high floor of the head box and sink cabinet, avoiding the stringers altogether. I will try to post some pics tonight.
Best,
Bob