9
« on: February 15, 2016, 06:59:40 PM »
I have a dripless shaft seal (aka PSS?) on my '86. I've never had an issue with it, and hence never spent much time down there looking at it. There is a hose coming off of the unit. Looking at photos online, I've seen this hose referred to as a "Water Pickup Hose", which, in the photos online, disappears out of the photo, seemingly to some water source. In my case, BEFORE my last bottom paint job, my PSS had a hose on it that was about 4 or 5"(?) long and sealed with a plug in the end of it, pointing straight up. My bilge has always stayed dry when it's not raining out, so my PSS was apparently not leaking. After my last haulout, my invoice stated, "Replaced the vent line hose with new longer hose". Seems they removed the existing 4-5" sealed-end hose and replaced it with a hose lead all the way to the space under my head sink. Their new hose had a brass plug at the end, said plug having a small hole drilled in it to allow water to bleed out of it. They mounted it high on the wall directly above my main power switch (under the sink), which really ticked me off because it bled water down on the main switch when I ran the engine. My questions: 1)Was my original short, sealed hose an incorrect installation because it was below the water line or was it ok? 2)Is it proper/necessary for this new hose to bleed water out of it when I'm running the motor? 3)When I reroute this new, longer hose away from my main switch, can/should I install an anti-syphon fitting on it so I can run this water-bleeding line back down to the hull level so it's not spitting water indiscriminately? Thanks much for any advice you can share.