Once you have center punched all the wiring holes you are ready to drill. It is best to use a variable speed drill if you have access to one. Place the point of the drill bit into the center punch mark and slowly start drilling applying pressure straight up and down/perpendicular to the hole in the tower. Be prepared for the drill bit to break through to the inside diameter of the tower, when it does the drill bit can catch an edge, which will stop the drilling and can jerk the drill out of your hands possibly injuring someone or scratching the finish of the tower. When done drilling the wiring holes take a small file and file away the inside and outside sharp edges of the holes.
Now you are ready to start wiring the tower, you need speaker wire of your choice, grommets (www.McMaster.com part number 9307k59), nylon fabric sleeving 3/16" diameter (pick it up at a electronic store), some electrical tape or heat shrink tubing. Getting the wires into the tower is not very hard, there are several ways to do it. With my install I taped the ends of the four wires together and pushed them in through Hole-2 towards Hole-1. Once I could see the wires through Hole-1 I fished them out with a pair of needle nose pliers. If you are putting four wires through one hole, depending on the gauge of the wire, you will most likely need to drill those holes bigger than the holes with two wire pairs. To determine what size hole to drill put four wires together, covered with sleeving, push it all through a grommet and measure the O.D. of Groove (see Photo-5, section-2) take .03?? from that diameter and you should be good. Remember before feeding the wire from Hole-3 to Hole-4 you will need to add the sleeving and grommets to the wire pairs. First you need to prepare Hole-2, Slide a grommet over all four wire pairs almost to Hole-2.
Then you need to add sleeving to the two sets of wire pairs. The first pair will go to the speakers on that side of the tower and the second set will go in Hole-3 and out Hole-4 to the speakers on the other side. The best way I found to hold the nylon sleeving on the wire was to cut the sleeving to length. Slide it over the wires, then cut a one inch piece of heat shrink and slide it half way over the sleeving and half over the exposed wires (see Photo-5, section-4). Once you have it in place heat the heat shrink tubing with a heat gun/heat source. Note: be careful with the heat source it will easily melt the nylon sleeving. If you do not have what is needed to use heat shrink you can use electrical tape instead. Once you have installed the sleeving on two individual wire pairs and a set of wire pairs pull all three of them through the grommet towards Hole-2 until only the sleeving is showing past the grommet on all three.
To make it easier to install the grommet, wet it first and then install it into Hole-2 being careful not to let the second flange of the grommet go through the hole. On the two single pair of wires that are wiring the speakers on that side of the tower you can take the heat gun (you can use a lighter if you do not have a heat gun but be careful) and heat the edge of the sleeving just to the melting point pressing it together around the wire to make a tight fit which will keep it from fraying (see Photo-5, section-3). On the other pair of wires repeat securing the end of the sleeving to the wire with the heat shrink/electrical tape, making sure to leave enough length to pull the sleeving through the grommet that will be installed in Hole-3. Repeat the sleeving process where the wires come out of Hole-4 to each wire pair and push the two wires back through the grommet until only the sleeving is showing and install the grommet in Hole-4. All you have to do now is install the speakers on the tower wire them up and you are done. To get the wiring into the boat and connected to your amp see: Drilling a Hole in Fiberglass
Article Provided By : WakeDoc
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