One of the first things you'll need to figure out is what type of panel and breakers you would like to have on your boat. There are a few different companies that offer ready made panels with various numbers and types of breakers that come ready to install. The breakers are available in a switch type, push on & pull off or push reset only. In my case I chose a custom panel made of aluminum that I had a local sign shop make for me and breakers that are strictly overload protection with a push button reset to help keep the cost of this project down.
With the breakers installed in the panel, I used strips of copper with holes drilled at 1" centers (same as the holes in the panel) as Bus Bars to distribute power to the breakers. In the picture below you can see 4 separate bars. These are to be attached to three different power sources. Two of them are attached to the house bank (switched), one to the cranking bank (switched) and one to the cranking bank (un-switched for bilge pumps). Another way to distribute power to the breakers is with jumper wires which I did in one location. This wire powers one breaker which is for the nav lights. The reason I did this is that I couldn't decide weather I wanted the nav lights on the cranking bank or the house bank. Since the bus bar above this breaker is for the cranking bank and the one below for the house bank, I can easily switch the power source by moving the jumper wire.
My indecision on which power source should feed the nav lights came from my belief that only items that are essential to the safe operation of the boat should be on the cranking bank. When traveling at night the nav lights fall into this category however the anchor light is part of the nav light package. I'd hate to kill my cranking bank by forgetting to shut off the anchor light after a night on the hook. This sounds like a topic for debate but I'll get back to the panel upgrade now.
The next thing to do is to go thru the the fuse panel and determine what each wire coming from the panel is feeding. I did this two different ways. The first part was easy since I have a diagram of the wiring for the factory wiring which labeled with corresponding numbers. For the rest of the wires, I disconnected the power feed to the fuse block and ran a jumper from this to each individual load wire one at a time to see what it powered up. I then temporarily marked the wire with tape and a pencil.
Below are the fuse blocks to be removed as well as several in line fuses and multiple leads per fuse.
Fuse blocks removed and wires labeled.
Next, the leads needed to be extended to reach the new breaker panel. Since I don't like the idea of using butt connectors to extend these leads, I installed two contact strips in the existing plastic bus duct. Due to the amount of terminals required and the limited space in which to install them, I had to mount them side by side with a portion of each overlapping the other. Then using crimp on eyelets on the wires I connected them to outside terminals of the contact strips leaving the inside terminals for the wires from the breakers. Its a good idea to draw a diagram of the contact strips and label on each contact what the wire is for. This will make wiring in the breakers much easier later on.
In the above picture you can also see left of the terminal strips a bus bar that I added to connect all of the ground leads to. Each lead has a yellow band used to indicate that these leads are DC grounds. The reason for this is that boats have both AC and DC systems which have very different meanings for white and black leads. Since the white and black combination is sometimes used on the DC side, the yellow band helps eliminate any confusion. I believe that this is an ABYC standard.
Next I ran the power leads from the terminal strip to the bus bars on the back of the breaker panel. Since two of these bars are for house bank power, I simply ran a jumper wire between them.
Next I made and ran the leads from the breakers to the corresponding terminal on the contact strip one at a time. I was fortunate to get my hands on a heat shrink label machine for this portion of the job and labeled both end of each lead. This will make any future service of the DC panel less confusing since almost all of the wires are red. Since you can install the breaker panel pretty much anywhere in the boat that you would like, its important to be sure to choose the correct wire gauge for the required amperage load and the distance that it will be carried. In my case, I was able to match the existing wire sizes since I installed it in the original location and the leads are all short. After all of the leads were attached, I banded them together with Zip ties to create a nice clean wiring harness as shown in the picture below.
To mount the new panel, I used a similar method to what Trojan used for the switch panel. I used threaded rod and screw one end onto the back wall and threaded a nut onto the other end creating a stand off. I used four of these for mounting the panel. Stand offs are shown in the picture below.
Next I gently curved the wire harness and installed the breaker panel in its new home.
I spent alot of time at the boat this winter working on this project and my wife came out with me most of the time. Most of her time was spent down in the cabin reading, putting together her to do lists for spring,watching TV and snoozing. After I finally tightened up the last wing nut to hold the panel in place, I said to her "I'm finally done, come check this out". She came up into the cockpit looked at it and said "it looks pretty good except for all of the wires". I thought to myself #!?:xX?!
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. I then stood back and looked at it and decided that she was right, it would look better if you couldn't see the wires. To solve this problem, I used some left over bus cap which I cut and shaped it to fill in the spaces. It mounts on the same stand offs behind the panels and can be removed easily in sections along with the panels. Best of all its wife approved. 
Picture below. 
Well I guess that pretty much covers it. I hope that I've given a clear enough description of one way to tackle this project. Keep in mind that this is not a job that you'll knock off in a weekend. The trick is to be patient and look at each circuit one at a time. Otherwise it may get overwhelming. I hope that I've inspired others to do this. I know that this job is on Randy's to do list.
Yeah, no more jiggling fuses to get the blower to work.
