What are these wires for?

[bjflink]

I have a 2000 Bimini 306, and as I was working in the bilge, I noticed wiring strapped to a bulkhead which looks to be original. The wiring doesn't go to anything, and the ends are capped with waterproof termination connectors. Anyone have any ideas what they are for? This picture was taken facing aft. The wires in question are strapped to the top of the port bulkhead that runs fore/aft...the bundle of green/black wiring just forward of where the bilge hose goes through the fore/aft bulkhead.

 

[Sharkbait282]

BJ,

If you can get an accurate look of the color of the wires, I'd recommend consulting the owners manual for your boat and year that you can download from the Grady White site. Typically the wiring color can give you a pretty close guess as why they might be there. For example on my boat we recently abandoned the original live well pump wiring, so now there's a black ground and orange 18ga wire taped and capped with no use in the aft bilge in case it needs to be re-purposed. Some of the original cabling is even number coded to correspond with the owners manual.

My guess is that a prior owner either re-wired a pump or electronics (transducer?) and ran new wires, OR there's a factory option that your boat might not have installed, so the unused part of the wiring harness was tied off at the factory.

Bob.

 

[Lt.Mike]

As Bob said it could be corroded wiring abandoned and replaced by the prior owner. If its Grady wiring it could be for accessories like a washdown or baitwell pump that were not installed. The harnesses have wiring for everything whether its installed or not. I can be a big help when you do decide to install something but thats only if corrosion didn't creep up the unused wire as well. Get the wiring schematic off the Grady site, it'll tell you what the wires were intended for.
Mike.