Clayton Danyew
Jet Boat Lover
- Messages
- 34
- Reaction score
- 30
- Points
- 67
- Location
- Greenville, SC
- Boat Make
- Yamaha
- Year
- 2011
- Boat Model
- Limited S
- Boat Length
- 24
I recently completed the stereo upgrade (Check it out: https://jetboaters.net/threads/my-2011-yamaha-242-ls.16871/#post-290377), completed the full boat reupholstery...next was some lights for summer night cruising (was 29deg in SC yesterday so who knows if that day will ever come). My boat is blue, and the upholstery has blue accents in it, so it was an easy decision to go with Blue LED lights.
Step 1: Replace stock courtesy lights with BLUE LED bulbs
I replaced the stock courtesy lights near the passenger and driver seats. These were easy to swap out, simply unscrewed the light cover, pulled the old white bulb, and replaced with the following. got them cheap on amazon, put out a ton of light to illuminate the whole center of the boat, and have extras just in case they ever go out.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0141FZ310/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Step 2: Fix the Tower/Courtesy switch wiring
It drove me crazy that the tower/courtesy toggle switch were tied together the way they were. The tower switch would turn on the bright white tower lights, but the courtesy switch would turn on both the tower and now blue courtesy lights. whats the point of blue lights if everythings lit up anyways. i did some research and this was actually an easy fix. i removed the dash cluster (several screws on the face) and pulled it out far enough that i could reach the toggle switches on the right side (believe it is the second one down on the far right). There is a diode that connects the tower and courtesy lights together that bridges the two terminals. this basically only allows power/current to flow in one direction between them. I simply removed it and plugged the wires back in and this fixed the problem. now the tower switch turns on the tower lights, and the courtesy switch only turns on the blue courtesy lights. you DO have the option if you would like to switch the direction of the diode, and this would allow you to have either the courtesy lights only on, or the tower and courtesy lights on. I think thats kinda silly though so i opted to keep them separate. the diode has a piggy back spade connector on it which was kind of a pain to separate from the wire connector, just wiggle it back and forth until it starts coming loose.
Step 3: Add BLUE LEDs
I spent a while looking for LEDs that weren't too expensive, had good reviews, and i felt would last on the boat. I ended up going with these from amazon. $30 for 10 lights. I figured if any ever went out, it would be cheap to replace them.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073S71WXM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I laid out my plan as to where i wanted them before i started drilling holes. i highly recommend my plan below, or if you do something different, be sure to check behind every location you are looking to put them. I WAS going to put an LED on the port side in front of the head across from LED 3, thank god i checked first, because there seems to be a big metal box behind there, and was no access to run wires. For these LEDs, i used a 3/4" stepped drill bit, was super easy to drill through the fiberglass without having to keep switching to larger bits.
LED 1-6, : These were simple and straight forward. behind each light was plenty of space. measured 2.5" from the deck floor, made a mark, and drilled the hole. One mistake i made was accidentally drilling through the fabric in the cubbys. i would recommend pulling this away before you drill so that from the inside you cant even tell there's an LED or wires there. you can simply glue it back on afterwards. i added some clear silicone to the back of each LED before screwing it into the fiberglass to ensure a water tight seal. there is enough space under those front cupholders to run the wire from LED 1 around and splice into the other wires. And i just wired everything in parallel with butt connectors and ran the wire up to the control panel.
LED 7-10: These were kind of a pain to install. These lights were going to be installed behind the rear seats, and i wanted them to be seen from far away, so i decided to install two on each side. in order to do this you need to remove the back seat. there are 6 bolts on each seat sticking through into the engine compartment that are fairly easy to find and remove the nuts/washers. there are also 4 bolts sticking through into the compartment behind the rear cabin speakers that are a bit harder to reach. you will need to remove the two speakers in the rear of the cabin, and reach in to find these. you kind of have to reach in blindly as there is really not much light or space. i was only able to find 3 on each side to remove the nuts from. this was ok for me though, because once the three nuts were removed i was still able to pull the seat away far enough that the bolts came out of their holes, and i could pivot the seat around that last lower bolt to gain access. there are two large holes behind each seat, i used these as a guide for my LED positioning. i measured 3" down from the center of each hole, and made a mark. on the port side, there is really nothing behind this to worry about and you can drill pretty easily. on the starboard side however, there are the engine air intake ducts you need to watch out for. be very careful when drilling on this side that you do not puncture these ducts. once these holes were drilled, i put silicone on the led, put it in the hole, and screwed it on to secure it. then you just pivot the seat back, put the bolts into their holes through the fiberglass, and tighted down the washers/nuts the same way to took them off. Looking from the back of the boat, the LEDs are completely hidden behind the seat doing it this way. i then spliced the two set of wires on each side together, connected them to a lead wire, and routed them out of the engine compartment by going along the wall towards the outside of the boat on each side.
Wiring: I routed all of the wires in parallel. whenever a wire passed another LED, i would splice them together using butt connectors and then connect another lead wire. this way once everything was routed back to the dash, there were only two additional wires that i need to connect. I did not notice any reduction in brightness by doing this. The stock setup has the two existing courtesy lights spliced into one spade connector that plugs into the switch. I removed these wires, cut off the existing spade connector, and spliced all four positive wires together into a new connector and plugged it in. I then took the two ground wire, spliced them together to a piggy back spade connector, plugged it into where the existing black wires were, then plugged the black wires into that. Now I have the ability to switch the white tower lights on, or switch all of the blue LED courtesy lights on.
For being my first time, this was actually surprisingly easy to do. I spread it out over a few days after work...but all in all probably would have been a 1 day project and it makes the boat look so much better at night. I cant wait to get it out on the water and see how it looks at night. Underwater lights next???
Final product!!!
If you have any questions, recommendations, or feedback...do not hesitate to reach out. Hopefully this will help someone looking to do the same thing (or similar).
Step 1: Replace stock courtesy lights with BLUE LED bulbs
I replaced the stock courtesy lights near the passenger and driver seats. These were easy to swap out, simply unscrewed the light cover, pulled the old white bulb, and replaced with the following. got them cheap on amazon, put out a ton of light to illuminate the whole center of the boat, and have extras just in case they ever go out.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0141FZ310/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Step 2: Fix the Tower/Courtesy switch wiring
It drove me crazy that the tower/courtesy toggle switch were tied together the way they were. The tower switch would turn on the bright white tower lights, but the courtesy switch would turn on both the tower and now blue courtesy lights. whats the point of blue lights if everythings lit up anyways. i did some research and this was actually an easy fix. i removed the dash cluster (several screws on the face) and pulled it out far enough that i could reach the toggle switches on the right side (believe it is the second one down on the far right). There is a diode that connects the tower and courtesy lights together that bridges the two terminals. this basically only allows power/current to flow in one direction between them. I simply removed it and plugged the wires back in and this fixed the problem. now the tower switch turns on the tower lights, and the courtesy switch only turns on the blue courtesy lights. you DO have the option if you would like to switch the direction of the diode, and this would allow you to have either the courtesy lights only on, or the tower and courtesy lights on. I think thats kinda silly though so i opted to keep them separate. the diode has a piggy back spade connector on it which was kind of a pain to separate from the wire connector, just wiggle it back and forth until it starts coming loose.
Step 3: Add BLUE LEDs
I spent a while looking for LEDs that weren't too expensive, had good reviews, and i felt would last on the boat. I ended up going with these from amazon. $30 for 10 lights. I figured if any ever went out, it would be cheap to replace them.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073S71WXM/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I laid out my plan as to where i wanted them before i started drilling holes. i highly recommend my plan below, or if you do something different, be sure to check behind every location you are looking to put them. I WAS going to put an LED on the port side in front of the head across from LED 3, thank god i checked first, because there seems to be a big metal box behind there, and was no access to run wires. For these LEDs, i used a 3/4" stepped drill bit, was super easy to drill through the fiberglass without having to keep switching to larger bits.
LED 1-6, : These were simple and straight forward. behind each light was plenty of space. measured 2.5" from the deck floor, made a mark, and drilled the hole. One mistake i made was accidentally drilling through the fabric in the cubbys. i would recommend pulling this away before you drill so that from the inside you cant even tell there's an LED or wires there. you can simply glue it back on afterwards. i added some clear silicone to the back of each LED before screwing it into the fiberglass to ensure a water tight seal. there is enough space under those front cupholders to run the wire from LED 1 around and splice into the other wires. And i just wired everything in parallel with butt connectors and ran the wire up to the control panel.
LED 7-10: These were kind of a pain to install. These lights were going to be installed behind the rear seats, and i wanted them to be seen from far away, so i decided to install two on each side. in order to do this you need to remove the back seat. there are 6 bolts on each seat sticking through into the engine compartment that are fairly easy to find and remove the nuts/washers. there are also 4 bolts sticking through into the compartment behind the rear cabin speakers that are a bit harder to reach. you will need to remove the two speakers in the rear of the cabin, and reach in to find these. you kind of have to reach in blindly as there is really not much light or space. i was only able to find 3 on each side to remove the nuts from. this was ok for me though, because once the three nuts were removed i was still able to pull the seat away far enough that the bolts came out of their holes, and i could pivot the seat around that last lower bolt to gain access. there are two large holes behind each seat, i used these as a guide for my LED positioning. i measured 3" down from the center of each hole, and made a mark. on the port side, there is really nothing behind this to worry about and you can drill pretty easily. on the starboard side however, there are the engine air intake ducts you need to watch out for. be very careful when drilling on this side that you do not puncture these ducts. once these holes were drilled, i put silicone on the led, put it in the hole, and screwed it on to secure it. then you just pivot the seat back, put the bolts into their holes through the fiberglass, and tighted down the washers/nuts the same way to took them off. Looking from the back of the boat, the LEDs are completely hidden behind the seat doing it this way. i then spliced the two set of wires on each side together, connected them to a lead wire, and routed them out of the engine compartment by going along the wall towards the outside of the boat on each side.
Wiring: I routed all of the wires in parallel. whenever a wire passed another LED, i would splice them together using butt connectors and then connect another lead wire. this way once everything was routed back to the dash, there were only two additional wires that i need to connect. I did not notice any reduction in brightness by doing this. The stock setup has the two existing courtesy lights spliced into one spade connector that plugs into the switch. I removed these wires, cut off the existing spade connector, and spliced all four positive wires together into a new connector and plugged it in. I then took the two ground wire, spliced them together to a piggy back spade connector, plugged it into where the existing black wires were, then plugged the black wires into that. Now I have the ability to switch the white tower lights on, or switch all of the blue LED courtesy lights on.
For being my first time, this was actually surprisingly easy to do. I spread it out over a few days after work...but all in all probably would have been a 1 day project and it makes the boat look so much better at night. I cant wait to get it out on the water and see how it looks at night. Underwater lights next???
Final product!!!
If you have any questions, recommendations, or feedback...do not hesitate to reach out. Hopefully this will help someone looking to do the same thing (or similar).
Last edited:
