Update:
Well father still in CCU (going on 4 weeks now) and wife had her first surgery Thursday.
On the bright side the surgery went very well and she will be spending the rest of the day in bed and the majority of the weekend resting. Sooooo, I worked on the center console. That way I stayed in hearing range of my wife and did something to keep my mind off what is going on.

First I covered all of the areas that I would be cutting with masking tape. (I found very wide tape at Biglots.) Then I used a pencil, tape and straight edges to draw out the components onto the console. Unfortunately my Autocad drawing did not take into consideration that the console tapered slightly from front to back so some of my dimensions were off. Good thing I laid it out before cutting anything! I made a few adjustments and got all of my components drawn in. Then using a sliding micrometer I measured all of the components for cut out needs. (The micrometer was a $10. Home Depot special) Transferring the inner dimensions took the rest of the day.

Sunday was cut out day and man was it hot out, couldn’t work more than a half hour at a time. Finally put on swim trunks because I kept getting soaked all the way through from sweat. Most all of the cutouts are done and the majority of the parts fitted. I used a two inch hole saw for the small gauges to find out that one of them was actually two and a quarter. Why can’t they all be the same? Well Dremel in hand I made the last one fit.

One area that I messed up on was the cut out for the radio/CD player. I made it 3/6” too long. I will have to make a face plate to make it look good….I also did not take into account the slight molded rise in the front section where I wanted to put in the double doors to the inside of the console. The cut out was good but I had a ¼” gap between the console and the door at the top. I plan on getting some UHMW plastic to fit as a spacer.

So far I have cut and fit two 6 rocker switch panels, two 3 switch rocker panels with battery gauges, stereo, engine controls, steering wheel, RPM gauge, Pressure, temp, and fuel gauges, front double door, and rear hatch into the console. It looks very nice so far.
I have purchased three tubes of 5 minute marine epoxy to coat the inner portions of the holes to help prevent delaminating where I made cuts. I have not decided where the trim tab or the jack plate controls will go yet. I also can’t place the speakers until I fit the T-top to the new console.

Update:
I Did not have time to work on the boat this week at all. Too busy with wife, house, and work. I did tax my limited ACAD skills again by making a preliminary electrical schematic for the console. (During break times of course) I then asked one of the electrical panel builders here at work to take a look at it for mistakes. Hopefully I will get it back from him soon so that the wiring can start.

In anticipation of wiring I purchased 200 feet of 16/2 wire from boaterbits.com. From my electrical research I made sure that it was tinned, type 3, and met all temperature and marine specs. I also purchased terminal rings and butt splices that have heat shrink attached to them from the same company. Total cost was $88. The wire cost was a third of what the marine salvage place wanted and a quarter of Boaters World! I also found that Walmart has the best deal on stainless screws. So I bought 2 small boxes along with a tube of 5200 to finish mount the items onto the console. (Another $25.) Good news is Dad is out of the hospital and doing well.