Since the VHF radio, and the stereo on the fly bridge did not work, I decided to replace them with a new Fusion stereo, power outlets, and when it arrives the remote handset for the VHF radio.

Here is what things looked like to begin with, a dead VHF radio, a holster for some icon marine device that we don’t have, and a non functioning stereo. The only thing that does work is the USB outlet in the top left corner:

To start with I cut a new piece of starboard for a fresh start on this project. and I cut out holes for the Fusion stereo and the power connections, rounded the corners and routered the edges to make it look as much like the original as possible.

As I got into it I found some interesting things. The power that was supplying the stereo did not work, also the fuse on the existing stereo appeared to have been blown and patch up with aluminum foil. To fix the dead power problem, I found that under the flybridge dashboard was a fuse panel with room to add in another fuse and plug in a wire to an open spade connection to run power to the stereo. Quick and easy, problem solved, following my original boat rule of “whenever it is feasible, replace wires rather than reusing the existing 25 year old wiring”.

Things came out nicely in once piece to be thrown away.

The power install went great, and so did most of the stereo, until I found out that one of the speakers was blown and produced nothing but static.

New speakers have been ordered to replace the poly-planar speakers and will be installed in the next day or two.

The stereo that we went with was a reasonably priced Fusion RA55, which has great Bluetooth connectivity, but at the lower price point did not have NMEA 2000 connectivity, which is okay as I did not really see the need for NMEA connectivity on this stereo.

Here is what the final setup looks like:

Now on to the speaker replacements. Two new speakers from West Marine, but they are about 3/4″ larger than the original speakers, so out comes the handheld jig saw, and now the holes are big enough. The speaker wire between the stereo and the left side of the radar arch was damaged, so we had to run new speaker wire there.

And here is how the final product looks, if you didn’t know the speakers had been replaced you might think they were original.

The speakers sound even better than they look. Next perhaps a second set of speakers on the fly bridge.

Every time we work on this boat we are bringing it back to better than original condition. For instance the speakers we installed were much better than the factory installed speakers (even when they were new).

Related products: