Home › Forums › Bass Cat Boats › 2001 Pantera III w/2001 Optimax – wiring??
Have this rig and wanting to replace the old original Pinpoint graph (which took off when first purchased as didn’t work) with a Lowrance 9″ HOOK2. Question if anyone can help – can I just splice the factory power line that was connected to the old Pinpoint to the HOOK2 power cable, should that work fine despite being 19 yrs. old? Would that original line already have an inline fuse somewhere on it to protect the unit? That orig. power line shows 12V to it but not fully charged per tester; battery had just been fully charged up same day. Did temp hook the HOOK2 to that orig. power wire and power comes on but picture flicker’s constantly and cannot get to work right?
If it’s not working, something is amiss. To troubleshoot, I would run a temporary power wire from my battery to the new hook and see if that works just to make sure the new hook is good. If it works properly, then you know the problem lies in the old power wire somewhere. If it’s bad, I would just run another wire. 14 gauge should do it. Always worked on my units. There’s a block on the transom you could piggyback on just to keep things clean. Your problem could be there also and you may want to clean all the terminals and inspect it for corrosion and good connections/crimps on the ring terminals.
I have the same boat and when I added the new units I used the old wiring point. About half way thru the day of fishing, the units would cut off upon cranking. I ran a separate dedicated wire back to battery and have never had a problem since. I also added an inline breaker to protect the units also.
Good Luck
Thanks guys! Re: Boatseller – I’ve had trouble running wire direct from battery thru gunnels as can’t seem to get them thru. What did you use to run the wires direct from battery? I have had the 9″ unit at the bow hooked up direct to the battery with wiring taped to outside of boat as a temp hookup, have inline fuse there to protect unit, works well that way but looks terrible, tape keeps coming loose so decided needs to hookup properly.
In 1999 we did not install many of the units and about half were a dealer/customer install. Where as today the ration is well over 90% new. Odds are it was aftermarket and we don’t have any idea on the method then.
bobsquatch13:
Thanks guys! Re: Boatseller – I’ve had trouble running wire direct from battery thru gunnels as can’t seem to get them thru. What did you use to run the wires direct from battery? I have had the 9″ unit at the bow hooked up direct to the battery with wiring taped to outside of boat as a temp hookup, have inline fuse there to protect unit, works well that way but looks terrible, tape keeps coming loose so decided needs to hookup properly.
Bob, lots of threads on how to run wire to console. That’s the hard run. Once there, pretty easy to get to front. Use electrical tape to make smooth transitions so the wires don’t catch on things. If it sticks, it’s helpful to have a helper to pull back a little and try again until you get past hard spots in the gunnel. Here one of the threads discussing it but there’s others. Use search function…running wires…
Mine was hard to run down the starboard side so I chose the port side for the bow units. Went thru like a dream. I did zip tie it up in the rod box to keep from hanging down. It may be just me but it also bypasses the engine wiring harness and other bulk wiring on that side giving it less of a chance for any interference that the newer depth finders are famous for.
@Boatseller – great idea, THANKS!
I know Boatseller said possibly going down the port side, but expect interference on your graphs as the trolling motor wiring runs there. Which is why the factory ran it down the starboard side. From experience on my 01 P3 I would tell you to check the terminal block on the transom. Mine corroded the jumper wires that were looped on the bottom side.
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