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Crusader grounding wire

E

eggharborrick

Contributing Member
i noticed on my dads 75 egg ha

i noticed on my dads 75 egg harbor with twin 360 chryslers he has a number of green grounding wires attached to everything.my 85 silverton with 270 crusaders has none i can find.the one previous owner swears he did not remove anything. i spoke with a surveyor yesterday in the yard i'm in and he stated the green grounding wires are needed to prevent explosion during fueling and scared the hell out of me.whats really needed here and where should they be ??
 
"To prevent galvanic corrosion

"To prevent galvanic corrosion, GOOD boats have a grounding wire grid that ties all metalic parts in contact with the water together, then uses an anode to properly protect them. Your Egg may be one of those.

Jeff"
 
"The single, most important &#

"The single, most important "green" bonding wire is the one that runs to the metal fuel fill deck fitting. That is the one the surveyor is talking about."
 
"To clarify Dave's input,

"To clarify Dave's input, there should be a 'green wire' between the deck fuel fitting and the fuel tank. The idea is to provide an electrical path to eliminate the charge buildup that would cause an electrostatic discharge (spark) that could cause an explosion during fueling."
 
"Connecting metal parts in a b

"Connecting metal parts in a boat electrically, can have many purposes. To keep the gas from exploding during the fill process, you need the fill pipe bonded.
Beyond that, it kind of depends. If you have a SSB radio, you want a lot more things bonded, like all big metal parts. If you're in salt water, you might consider bonding all u/w metal to zinc. If you worry about lightning, then all topside parts bonded, as well. So, you can see in some boats, most every large metal piece is bonded, and all of the u/w ones too."
 
so if i ground the fill pipes

so if i ground the fill pipes to the fuel tanks and the fuel tanks to the engines which are already grounded together i should be good ??? there is zincs on the prop shafts and rudders.
 
rick:

when you said the &#3

rick:

when you said the "engines which are already grounded"; what are you referring to?
 
"This is where our language ge

"This is where our language gets us in trouble....

The idea situation has all that metal tied together (battery, or DC grounded) and then connected back to the earth, thru the water (earth grounded). The "minimum" as Dave labeled it will not provide a path to disperse any charge buildup and could still cause an issue in a fueling situation; low probability, but still something to keep in the back of your mind."
 
"This is where opinions will v

"This is where opinions will vary. Here is what I did on my boat.

291846.jpg
"
 
"EJ, I just love your paint w

"EJ, I just love your paint work...AND your drawings are very cool also...

If you will clarify a few things:
1.) IS the TruCharge 40 a battery Charger?
2.) Your neutral to ground switching relay...how does this work and is it auto or manually operated?
3.) Do you use the galvanic isolater on only 1 AC panel or do you have one for the 2nd OR, does it pick up the 2nd AC panel thru neutral commonality"
 
"Al, the TruCharge 40 is a thr

"Al, the TruCharge 40 is a three bank charger. Fantastic piece of equipment. I see it doesn't show it in my diagram but each panel has a isolator.

The neutral to ground switching relay ties the neutral and ground together when running on inverter power. I use a continuous heavy duty relay for the switch and when plugged into shore power the relay is using the N/O positions on the relay and the coil is energized. Disconnecting the shore power cords de-energizes the coil and the relay switches to the N/C positions. It's pretty much fail proof as long as your coil doesn't burn out. I'm going on 6 years now with the same relay. I enclosed the relay in the DC disconnect box.

291860.jpg


291861.jpg
"
 
"Absolutley terrific... A beau

"Absolutley terrific... A beautiful job too.. I am using a 2500 watt charger inverter for the last 3 years since the MAJOR re-wire on our boat. It handles the 7 group 31 batteries we use on board for starting and for the house side but it looks like you may have more available power. While I did do it all myself, I did have a marine electrical engineer draw up a plan using the equipment I had planned on using. I do like the neutral to ground relay but I have to look at my plan to see if there is not some tie in already. GREAT looking stuff"
 
Damn! I would have to pull my

Damn! I would have to pull my engine out to fit all those batterys. Sure is a clean looking set up though.
 
"Picking up on an old thread,

"Picking up on an old thread, I have a question about bonding wires.

My boat has a bonding system but the wiring is all over the place. It looks like everything is tied together but isn't very neatly done. I do have a zinc plate on the transom.

Is there any reason to bond the stuffing boxes? On each side, I have two wires running across the bilge which are attached with hose clamps to the very edge of the packing nut. The second wire comes across from another through hull to yet another clamp which is basically thrown on top of the 1st one.

The engine is bonded which I assume bonds the transmission and in turn the propshaft. I also have zincs on the shaft itself.

Do you think I can eliminate this leg and clean it up a little? If anything, it looks like my boat is over-bonded with wires running everywhere and for the most part just laying in the bilge.

Bob"
 
"stuffing boxes; mine have a

"stuffing boxes; mine have a 10/32 bronze screw threaded into the non-rotating part of the stuffing box. This gets bonded. this is in addition to the shaft log, also bonded. The bronze has been intact for some 29 years, in the water all year long down here. I also use shaft brushes, eliminating the shaft zinc, but adding yet another wire. Overall, shaft zincs are high maintenance, many folks barely get 6 months life out of them. My brushes are going on the 6th year. Sometimes they do squeak, though!

As far as bond wire routing; my boat uses 1/16" thick, 1" wide, bare copper strap, one port, one starboard, running 2/3 the length of the boat. When a wire needs to be connected, the strap is bent/doubled and drilled for a bronze 1/4" screw, picking up the bonding wire ring terminal."
 
"DD, are you saying that if yo

"DD, are you saying that if you have shaft brushes connected to your grounding system, you do not need zinks on your shafts??"
 
""DD, are you saying that

""DD, are you saying that if you have shaft brushes connected to your grounding system, you do not need zinks on your shafts??"

If the bonding system connects to a hull zinc, YES."
 
"Dave, shaft brushes ? never h

"Dave, shaft brushes ? never heard of that. How does it looks? Install (on shaft) but where? any site or pictures available?

Very interested.

Henry G"
 
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