Messages

Yikes!!! Suddenly I feel no twinges of jealousy over your sparkling, dry bilge I think I love my nasty bilge!

What was the precipitating event in your delamination failure, or will you ever really know?

John

Thanks Ken for the treatise.

I need to remove and replace my tank ( old/original and very stretched = stinky ) and will require the entire aft panel removal and re-installation. The new tank will include the SensaTank 100 sensors applied to various sides of the tank to complete the triad of tank level sensing available with the SensaTank system ( 2 fresh water tanks + holding tank ).

John

OK Rick,

Please tell me that this picture was made with your boat up on the hard or something...... Nobody should have a C34 bilge that clean and dry ....... should they???? 

John

Hi Cliff,

Now you have me confused  In your initial posting, you said that "The lines into the tank do not get hot, even when I run the engine for 45 minutes..." In your current post, you say "they do get nice and hot and yet the water is cool!" and I assume by "they" you means the engine coolant lines going into the water heater.... What am I not understanding here??? It can't be both ways.

Could you post a picture of the front of the water heater where the engine coolant lines and fresh water lines are attached, and also provide the full model number of the Atwood water heater? Maybe I/we can glean something in the "what am I missing here" category 

On your original starting battery question, what is the brand and model number of your present battery? There are now many different varieties of AGM ( i.e. - "glassmat" ) batteries out there, and some of them are much better than others. The useful life of an AGM battery in starting applications is a function of both the original quality of the battery AND the consistency of proper charging of the battery in your installation.

I have some Lifeline AGM batteries that have been in starting applications for 6 to 8 years that are still performing very well. Of course they are a premium AGM battery, and they have been properly cared for their entire lives.

It is hard to generalize about battery life based only upon the generic battery chemistry differences. The only way to get an objective assessment of your battery's current status is to fully charge it properly and then have a properly performed load test conducted on the battery. A comparison of the current performance and the published new performance specs of the battery will then give you a good idea of what shape your battery is in.

Regards,

John

I agree, Ken: very handy collection of data. Good job!

Only question I had was about your comment that boats with a Capsize Ratio less than 2 should not participate in offshore races. Shouldn't that be more than 2??

Regards,

John

Hi David,

The short answer is yes, you probably are very low on gas. However, you could have no condenser fan running. Make sure the "cooling" fan runs when the compressor is running.

The long answer is to read all the good references Stu offered up. Stu and I alone have probably generated a small hard copy book on "reefer madness"  . ( Sorry, I couldn't help myself...... )

John

Cliff,

The coolant running through the water heater is not related to engine cooling fundamentally. The coolant flow path through the water heater is in parallel with the primary heat exchanger coolant flow, so complete blockage of the water heater flow path would have no long term effect on engine temperature. If the engine is up to a normal temperature and the water heater flow lines are cold, the is no coolant flow through the water heater loop, and you almost certainly have either a plugged flow path through the water heater loop, or you have an airlock in the water heater flow loop ( i.e. - see "burped" discussion).

John

Hi Bob,

In my experience in several boats, this is actually a fairly common occurrence. Buying a new pump isn't really a good longer term solution, IMHO. It generally happens when the bilge water level has been well below the bilge switch activation level for a while, and then the water level rises again slowly. I have not done any scientifically acceptable study on the matter, but it seems that there are times when the pump seems to experience an airlock-like condition. I have made the pump start pumping again by (1) repeated cycling of the bilge manual or float switch; (2) popping the bilge pump loose from the snap-down mount and tilting the pump momentarily to one side; or (3) sloshing water around into the intake of the pump. In every episode, the is nothing wrong with the pump once it begins to pull water into the pump, and until that occurs it simply runs "free" at a higher speed. As an added observation, I have never had the problem occur if there is a significant "head" of water depth in the bilge: only with less than 3 to 4 inches of water. ( I guess that's the good news  )

I have noticed it more often with the bilge water has slimy junk in it, or other stuff floating around down near the pump, and only after the pump has been in place for several years or more. This has reinforced my unconfirmed hypothesis that "stuff" in the water creates a "bell jar" effect by clogging up the "trash screen" around the intake area of the pump.

Anybody else have any additional thoughts?

John

I have been using my original "one speed" RotoZip for cutting everything imaginable on boats for about 10 years, including fiberglass. I especially like it to use free hand ( primarily on wood with or without fiberglass cloth over it ) in areas where you can't get ( or use ) a hand saw or jig saw. You can get very close in the corners of 3 meeting surfaces, something that is very difficult with anything else. Just make sure you one hand it very carefully with a good gripe: when the RotoZip take control from you, it can do lots of damage in a very short period of time.

When cutting a hole in fiberglass, it doesn't have to be as messy and dusty as you might think: if you move carefully and deliberately, most of the dust will stay put as it "back fills" the cut you just created. Before you complete the final cut, use the shop vac to go around the "back filled' cut and you can capture most of the fiberglass dust before it escapes all over you and the rest of the boat.

For use on fiberglass, just make sure you you have plenty of bits available. You can extend the useful life by using the cutting edges at different distances from the end of the bit for different cuts: the bits only dull in the area where you are actually cutting  .

I consider the RotoZip to be one of my primary boat tools.

John

Very true, Ron.

However, the system won't purge air out of the fuel delivery system by gravity feed very quickly. The "pump" on the filter is only a little faster than gravity feed, and tears up my knuckles to boot. My main interest in a working electric fuel pump is for all the other aspects beyond just having the engine run.

I'm lazy and proud! But, that's just me.....



John

Now that my original fuel pump has apparently bit the dust, I will share my research regarding the Facet/Purolator electric fuel pumps.

The Facet and Purolator brands are now manufactured by Motor Components, LLC ( www.facet-purolator.com ) The original Facet Interrupter that was standard on our older boats is still available, but at the higher price noted ( about $150 online ). The "solid state" version of the Interrupter is called the GOLD-FLO pump and is available online for as little as $85 online ( www.racerpartswholesale.com ). The old NAPA #610-1051was the Facet/Purolator FEP-04SV / PRO-04SV in the current POSI-FLOW series. The CUBE pumps are basically the "brick" looking pumps that Westerbeke and other manufacturers have been using for years, but in the "solid state" version.

The "solid state" is said to mean no bearings, no diaphragms to break, and no electrical contacts. It is said to increase reliability significantly over the mechanical electric pumps ( including the old Interrupter pump ) by a significant factor. I have used on of these types of pumps as a transfer pump in years past and found them to perform quite well and to be fairly robust. The frequency of their operation ( a high "buzz" rather than "clicking" ) leads me to suspect that they could be piezoelectric based.

The current Facet/Purolator pumps which approximate the performance of the original Interrupter pump are the FEP-06SV / PRO-06SV in the POSI-FLO series; the FEP-12SV / PRO-12SV in the CUBE series; and the FEP-87SV / PRO-87SV in the GOLD-FLO series. Many or all of these are available through a number of online retailers, or on e-Bay.

The only advantages the GOLD-FLO ( Interrupter replacement ) offers over the other models is the same mounting footprint and input/output configuration as the original pump, and the presence of the replaceable 74 Micron internal fuel filter ( which is of questionable value when properly positioned AFTER the Racor filter ). For about half the price of the GOLD-FLO model, I'll probably go with the CUBE model, which seems to be more readily available than the POSI-FLO.

Regards,

John

I contacted Hood about the upgrade program in June of 2007. I was able to buy one at that time, but they indicated that I got the last one available. I don't think they even make the SL900 drum anymore.

John

I think that all the boats up to the first walk thru transom had the 2x6s. Our boat has CNG and no propane locker, and the 2x6s were still there for shielding of the rear of the steering cable wheel and the rudder stops.

John

Hi Ken,

Sounds like your power supply may have lost some output filtering and you are getting noise on the output voltage. For starters, look at the voltage going into the A/B from the power supply with your DVM in the AC Volts mode and see if you are getting measurable results in that mode. I you are, then measure the same feed point with the A/B powered from the batteries and compare the AC Voltage readings. If the difference is significant, you probably have a power supply issue.

I'll follow your posts and provide feedback.

John

Hi All,

A few more things to think about when you have strange things going on in your alternator and/or tach. First, some alternator basics.

In typical diesel applications such as our C34 engines, the alternator provides both 12 volt power output and a tach signal output. The power output has effectively 3 pairs, or 6, high power output rectifiers to rectify the 3 phase output from the stator winding. The tach output is a halfwave rectified output of only one leg of the 3 leg stator output, meaning it has a dedicated low power diode. The tach diode and the power output diodes are independent ( something to remember  ).

In the case like Ed was describing where the tach and alternator output both failed at the same time, there is really only one root cause that can produce such a simultaneous failure ( if you don't count having the alternator intermittently stop turning.... ), and that is loss of field current. The loss of field current can be produced by: (1) a bad field current circuit, including a failed voltage regulator or bad connection in any field current wire; (2) a bad slip ring or rings in the armature circuit ( this winding is the field winding; (3) loss of DC power input to the voltage regulator. There may be a few more specific combinations of things, but they will all be some variant of these 3 general classes.

If the alternator output and tach outputs do not fail together, then there are a few specific combinations of failures that can produce the problem depending upon what works and what doesn't work. (1) If you have a smart voltage regulator and the tach quits after the regulator goes into float mode, that just means that your batteries are still floating down from the absorption charge voltage ( ~ 14.4 volts ) to the float voltage ( ~ 13.4 volts ) and the problem will generally go away if you have a modest load on the 12 volt system to get the battery back to the normal float voltage. (2) If your battery voltage falls obviously below your normal "cruise" charging voltage but the tach still works, you have lost some or all the power output from the alternator. If it is permanent, you probably have had output diodes fail or had an output circuit wiring failure. If it is intermittent, look first for output circuit path problems. It is possible under the right circumstances to experience intermittent output diode failures, but it would probably be a problem in the mechanical mounting of the diodes into the alternator case. I have also never actually seen intermittent output diode failures, but it is still possible. (3) If the tach quits but the alternator power output is normal, the problem almost has to be either in the wiring from the alternator tach output to the tach instrument; a failure in the the tach unit itself; a failure of the internal isolation diode on the tach output; or an internal alternator wiring failure in the tach output signal circuit.

If this posting doesn't go into enough detail for anybody about how exactly to perform the troubleshooting with normal "boat" tools, I'll try to add more detail in a follow up post if it's needed.

Regards, and happy troubleshooting.

John