Whats up with Gray wire (+) and White (-) on Chris Craft?

[Terestron]

I am restoring a 1987 Chris Craft and getting around to the wiring. I was surprised to see they used a Gray #8 wire as positive and a #8 White wire for negative that go back to starboard engine.

The gray wire connects to the breaker panel and the white wire to the negative buss bar next to it. This looks all original. am I seeing this right? Anyone else come across this?

My multi meter confirms which wire is which. anyone have a wiring diagram for a Amersosport 283?

[rslifkin]

They did a lot of stuff like that. Main battery cables on my 86 are red positive, black negative, as expected. But just about everything else is black positive, white ground. Annoying, but pretty consistent. And stuff is usually well tagged in my experience.

[Terestron]

Tagged..yes most still have numbers on the wires but it is useless without wire diagram. looks like they used green to ground as well. My battery cables are red and black. Just the DC system uses gray for + and White for - .

Wont be taking anything for granted that is for sure!

[roverhi]

Apparently they hired house electricians to do the wiring and didn't want to confuse them with DC wiring protocol. There is a move afoot to do away with black for ground wire because someone thinks we have to go with the STUPID AC convention of Black hot and white ground. AC wire color convention makes absolutely no sense.

[rslifkin]

Green ground wires should all be for the bonding system unless that's been messed with.

Be aware, I've also found inconsistent use of tinned vs untinned wire and same for heat shrink or not.

[LFairchild]

The Mariners' Museum in Newport News VA has an extensive Chris Craft archive provided by the company during their bankruptcy. They may have info on the Amerosport 283.

[Squanderbucks]

I have a 1965 Chris Craft Commander and yes these were wired before the present color coding formats were setup.

Confusion abounds because all the wiring on the boat was balck or white in my case and the 12v stuff is opposite from the AC wiring. and no third green ground wiring for AC . Much of that I have changed out but it can be confusing.
When I repowered I put in all new wiring harnesses to the engines and batteries and when installing anything new it gets color coded.

It had the old screw in fuses for the AC circuits and the large size (1/4" diameter) glass fuses for the 12v stuff. All that was taken out and Circuit breakers or ATO fuses for the low amp stuff.

A lot of the hot wires for the AC lines going to receptacles were a sort of TAN or Salmon color.

One of the joys of an older boat.

[Redline452]

Originally Posted by Terestron

I am restoring a 1987 Chris Craft and getting around to the wiring. I was surprised to see they used a Gray #8 wire as positive and a #8 White wire for negative that go back to starboard engine.

The gray wire connects to the breaker panel and the white wire to the negative buss bar next to it. This looks all original. am I seeing this right? ?

Are you sure it's a Chris Craft? Maybe it's a Grady-White ?

(sorry, couldn't resist)

[GordMay]

FWIW: ABYC Wire Colour Code

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by roverhi

Apparently they hired house electricians to do the wiring and didn't want to confuse them with DC wiring protocol. There is a move afoot to do away with black for ground wire because someone thinks we have to go with the STUPID AC convention of Black hot and white ground. AC wire color convention makes absolutely no sense.

That's incorrect. The recommendation is to go to YELLOW for DC ground instead of black, because of the chance of someone mistaking AC hot for DC ground. Most new 2-conductor marine wire is red/yellow.

To the OP - as long as the original wire is in good condition, just keep using it. Put some red tape on it if it's a +12v DC wire, Black (or yellow) tape if it's - DC, etc as a reminder.

If you write down the wire numbers and where they connect to as you go, you'll soon regenerate the wiring list. You might also find a wiring chart online for your model of boat.