Thanks for your reply. Some of the pic’s were taken before I cleaned her up and some after.
I will try to add some pics to this site.
I figure someone from the West Coast of Florida may be interested. I lived on the Manatee River, below Tampa, when I restored her. Actually bought the hull in Boca Grand.

I ran across your boat for sale on another forum. I am not in the market for one but i definitely recommend you clean her up nicely and post some photos on here as i believe that someone would interested. You are not too far from the West coast of Florida and the flatbacks are great for that area! Wish you well on the sale!

My pleasure Dan. I hope what I post helps and is of interest.

Got the rub rail screwed back in. A bit of a challenge getting the holes to line up but I remembered back in the day someone using a ratchet strap/come along to stretch it taunt. The knot I used is called a “Prusik knot” or “prusik loop”. It’s a great know to know and use. Worked well. I shot 5200 into every screw hole to further stop water from penetrating anywhere.
I have to figure out some sort of gadget to aid inserting the rope plastic center. The black rubber is aged and the edges damage easily. I was damaging it slightly just getting the screw heads to pull past it. I’ll figure something out. Luckily the rub rail eases the color difference between the cap and the hull (although doesn’t look like it in the first photo but that’s mostly lighting ). Almost 50 years has the hull a few shades closer to off white than the “bright white” of the new gel coat.

This is an old thread but one that has been cited as a reference, so I thought I would revive it with some additional information. I am starting to work on my 1995 245 Explorer wiring system, and as one would expect for a boat that has had more than one previous owner, it’s a mess. Here are pictures of my “black box” that contains the circuit breaker for the helm power and fuses for bilge pump float switches and stereo/memory. The unit was hanging loose by the wires in the stern compartment.





As you can see, a previous owner removed the fuse caps, effectively cutting power to the fused circuits. On inspecting the bilge pumps, I found that fore and aft float switch wires had completely deteriorated, the aft bilge pump and float switch wires had been cut, and a new (undersized) aft bilge pump had been installed and wired separately. I’m not surprised that this was done, since bilge access was limited until I cut an access hatch in the rear fishbox. The forward pump had been directly connected to a helm switch, bypassing the deteriorated float switch there. The old pumps worked perfectly once they were removed and cleaned; I plan to replace them using new float switches.

Several things about this black box caught my eye: (1) The breaker is 50 amps rather than 40 amps as described above. Perhaps that is typical of the 1995 245 Explorer. (2) Unlike previous descriptions, there is only one power lead entering the box. Turning one of the battery switches to “Off” cuts power to everything in the box. The wiring looks original; could it have come this way from the factory, or did a previous owner change the wiring in the distant past? (3) The fuses appear to be mislabeled. I’m pretty sure the orange wire supplies stereo/memory, the larger brown/red wire is for the aft bilge pump float switch, and the smaller brown/red wire is for the forward pump switch. (4) There is a yellow wire in the bundle that leads to but does not enter the black box. The other end of this wire ends in the helm and is not connected to anything. What could this wire have supplied?

I’ve already splurged on some Blue Sea Systems waterproof fuse holders, and I’m planning to restore a separate power lead to the fused float switches unless someone thinks this is a bad idea. Comments would be appreciated.

M

It really is coming along nicely! Hopefully I will start back up very shortly on the 250 CCP after getting sidetracked over the last couple of years.