YOU ARE REQUIRED to ship it somewhere they can remove it from the truck. That means a forklift.. and it NEEDS to be a looooong forklift. A standard one will not work as this thing is over 6ft deep.
Now, you have it purchased, sent your check, and have a place to have it shipped to (they may charge you as well).
Now.. you wait…. And wait…. And wait.. and wait more. They are working hard, but you are a one-off and so they will get it done. Go eat a few dinners, play with your kids, enjoy life.
Next.. it arrives, and you install it:
-------Okay, this thing weighs like 350lbs. Think you and your buddies can lift it? Think again. 350lbs behind held 18ft in the air ain’t easy. Have a plan on how to get it into your boat without breaking IT or yourself or the boat. We used a lift, in the shade of a building that was 18ft tall, and we still barely got it over the windshield. Why? Because once you lift it up, it is still limited by the width, so lifting it is step 1, step 2 is tilting it, without breaking the legs off or bending them, or breaking the windshield and that easy 350lbs has to maneuver around the chairs, cockpit, people, and all that.
------We lifted it with the lift, and then slid it down the side.
REMOVE THE CHAIRS, they will get in the way and they will get torn. We tilted the front upwards, as we pushed it sideways along the starboard walk around, then we tilted the back side upwards, to put the back pole where it needed to be and push the entire thing to port.
--------See the photos: If you have the cockpit hand rails, you need to remove them as the middle pole goes right there.
-------Once it is in place, make sure you did not crimp the wires… and you start the measuring, measuring, measuring.. and then, lunch and come back and measure… heh.. you get the idea.
The holes must, really, be done without a lot of marking. The reason is, you cannot mark and drill them all as you will be off, not may.. you will. Maybe you are a master driller, maybe not, heh… but two of three holes go in good, but the third will be off. It happened to us each time. The issue was the holes have to be perfectly straight or the bolts, as they go in, will move the entire thing just enough for the third to be off. Expect it. Drill all 3, and just expect to re-drill 1 of them. On the middle support, going where the hand rails were, will go on easy. I suggest you set that one first. Then the back pole, then the front two for that side. THEN, move to the other side and do the same thing.
The new anchor light comes installed a bit too far forward for us, but it was there, so the radar ended up a little more forward than we wanted, but fine. ASK THEM to move it back about a foot.
TIP: If you try to do both sides, moving forward, you could end up with the entire front being “off”. It may not make a difference, but it seemed to be a better move for us.
------ BIG TIP ---- WEAR DISPOSABLE GLOVES! When you set the backer plates, the 5200 sealant gets eeeeeverywhere. Have Mineral Salts available and/or other solutions for removing it from your hands, legs, arms, whatever lol
The front legs:
The ROOF of the cabin is glued like a MOFO… expect to pry at it eeeeasily… so as not to break it.. and it will break. Have a putty knife and use it to get under it. There are a lot of screws. These will not go back in as easy as that is soft above it in areas.. so get some new wider but not longer screws.
The BACK legs :
Access them from the fish boxes etc for the backer plates. If you do not use 5200, those will deteriorate the part between them.
The SIDES and middle support:
There is carpet behind the sides. Pull that back. People will say you can drill through it. Carpet is not a lock washer and it is not something sealant can adhere to. Pull the carpet back… get under it.
Running cables through the poles:
See those bolts holding the top on? When running cables, you WILL run into those. Watch how you back them out and put them back the same way. Go one hole at a time or it will be harder and you will get frustrated. Don’t try to fish the entire run in one “swoop”.
Run a NMEA 2000 backbone kit from the console/dash to the electronics box. Then you can hook anything ya want up.
ME…? We decided to put both VHF in the box, why? Because two more VHF wires down the tubes would have been a royal pain in the back end. Keep an open mind. Better to put a temporary plate over a dashboard hole and run the VHF to the box, than to deal with one more huge wire going down. Besides.. if you are sinking.. that adds 3 more feet of “help! I am sinking!” right? Lol
The cable run:
We had a REALLY hard time running cable on the port side, up to the window of the cabin and then up. Right as the cabin goes up… there is a “jig”.. and we spent a couple hours on it. Finally.. we decided that a $7 piece of cable hiding material of like 1ft long was worth the hassle. Home Depot sells a plastic piece that you can run cables along a wall with and hide them. It comes in like 5ft sections. We cut a foot and drilled a hole and ran the cables tightly along the roof, and covered them with that. Easy, looks awesome.
Power:
The top has 2 power runs. One goes to the anchor light switch on the dash, the other goes to the main power, we ran it to the “accessories” button….now, when we turn on the Fish Finder, it also powers the electronics box.
That is about it!
Anyone can do it….I am proof
Russ
