I performed most of this work over a two night period with Bill walking me through the diagnosis stage on Wednesday and once again offering counsel on Friday night. Friday, I stayed at it till 3 AM and was able to churn out what I described above. Everything worked that night in the driveway – I had even replaced the light bulb for the stern light and it was brighter than ever! As I had a wedding on Saturday, the testing would have to wait till Sunday…

Sunday came and I headed over the Lake Shelbyville around 4:30 AM and that was when I remembered another issue – the trailer light poles. About six weeks ago on my second time out with the boat, and in rough, windy weather, I launched it and proceeded to break the PVC pipes. I replaced them and all was well but the epoxy didn’t hold and the one pole was just being held in place with duct tape! In addition, since the poles were movable, the wiring had been stressed and the lights come and go. This is now my next project which is to replace these poles and re-wire the trailer lights – suggestions are also welcome for this!

Anyway, I get to the lake and put in the water and am pleased to note the trolling motor works, the stern light works, the horn works, the utility light works, the fishfinders work (maybe even better than before???), the bilge works (thankfully) and (unfortunately in some respects) so does the aerator!!!!

Now, I saw unfortunately as this aerator is either on or off with NO timed refreshing. And, once you turn it off the water will run out unless you put the plug in which I did yesterday morning. All was fine until I discovered I had left the aerator on shall we say a little tooooo long the one time. How did I know? Well when I went to leave I discovered water on the deck!! Thankfully, the bilge runs and after 20 or more minutes it stopped throwing water out so I could somewhat safely head home. Hey, at least the Crappie I caught had plenty of fresh water!

And, I am wondering if by virtue of my redoing the electrical connections for both fishfinders that the new Humminbird 161 I recently added is now better able to see and portray fish on it?? For the last couple weeks, I was concerned that this 161 wasn’t finding much while the Humminbird 565 was. It was almost like night and day between the two!! So here is a question for you all, that if you have a poor power connection on your fishfinder, could a BETTER power connection improve performance?

Anyway, I know this is more detail than most would ever desire but I wanted to share my discoveries in the hopes that others might be better prepared to do the same in the future, and, that you all might have additional ideas on what I could accomplish on my own now that I have made these fixes, corrections and improvements!

Also and just as importantly is to thank Bill for staying on the phone with me for maybe several hours walking me through them. His knowledge and abilities to repair a boat are only exceeded by his willingness to assist! Thank you!