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O useBilge pumps (testing them)


bigcol

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Okay I bought a bilge pump, fitted to our boat 3 years ago, made sure it ran, all good.and now and again pressed the button making sure it came on.

 

a few weeks ago, after changing a engine hose, l was about to use the wet & dry vacuum to get rid of the water in bilge,

realising I could use the bilge pump, more than that why hadnt it gone off anyways.

 

turns out after lots of mucking about, it was pumping, but the water was only making in up the outlet hose 6 inches.

anyway I bought and replaced this pump with another same make, same fault.!!

speaking to the company that sells them, they were complexed sending them videos mtr readings etc.

i then bought another type of pump from them thinking this will work, twice the price, if you have a bilge pump, you want it to work don’t you!!

so the 3rd pump arrived, and fitted it, same problem,made the sound, but only pumping 6 inches or so

sent video to the company, have been refunded in full.

 

Ive now bought a Rule 1100 automatic pump

worked first time!!

reason I’m posting, is to remind peeps to test new or old pumps with water making sure any water does pump overboard.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Arthur Marshall said:

But it won't when you need it - at least, mine never did.

 

Mine did.

 

I have a cutlass bearing, which had never even dripped, so I got out of the habit of chucking a bucket of water into the engine bilge occasionally to see if the automatic bilge pump still worked.

 

Then when we were taking the boat for its repaint, we were woken at 5:00 am by a strange whirring noise.

 

Turned out the cutlass bearing had split open and water was pouring in, with the bilge pump frantically trying to keep up.

 

Fortunately we were only a couple of hours away from the boatyard we were heading for. I bodged the bearing with some self amalgamating tape, which reduced the flow to a trickle.

 

Whilst bodging it, I found a small piece of glass in the grease within the rubber bearing. I now knew how the bearing had split. It also answered the question of where the end of the glass syringe that I had inherited with the boat for applying silicon grease had gone!

 

What surprised me that I had done around 1500 hours in the boat before it failed and who knows how many hours the previous owner had done with glass in the bearing before the glass shard finally cut through the rubber bearing.

 

 

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13 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Mine did.

 

I have a cutlass bearing, which had never even dripped, so I got out of the habit of chucking a bucket of water into the engine bilge occasionally to see if the automatic bilge pump still worked.

 

Then when we were taking the boat for its repaint, we were woken at 5:00 am by a strange whirring noise.

 

Turned out the cutlass bearing had split open and water was pouring in, with the bilge pump frantically trying to keep up.

 

Fortunately we were only a couple of hours away from the boatyard we were heading for. I bodged the bearing with some self amalgamating tape, which reduced the flow to a trickle.

 

Whilst bodging it, I found a small piece of glass in the grease within the rubber bearing. I now knew how the bearing had split. It also answered the question of where the end of the glass syringe that I had inherited with the boat for applying silicon grease had gone!

 

What surprised me that I had done around 1500 hours in the boat before it failed and who knows how many hours the previous owner had done with glass in the bearing before the glass shard finally cut through the rubber bearing.

 

 

 

Point of order. It was not a Cutless bearing that split. It was the rubber bellows section on a packless stern gland. The bearing is inside the back end of the stern tube or back end fitting. They usually have a brass body with a fluted rubber insert bonded into it so would have difficulty splitting.

 

Now you know why I don't like the things.

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20 hours ago, pearley said:

And make sure the automatic function works too.


I’ve just replaced my old (and knackered) automatic bilge pump with a pump and separate float switch for this reason - I like being able to easily lift the float now and then to check it works. 

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17 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Point of order. It was not a Cutless bearing that split. It was the rubber bellows section on a packless stern gland.


My guess would be it was a lip-seal type gland rather than a bellows type. There wouldn’t be any reason for grease in a bellows type (assuming PSS), in fact they should specifically be kept grease-free. 

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20 minutes ago, Thames Bhaji said:


My guess would be it was a lip-seal type gland rather than a bellows type. There wouldn’t be any reason for grease in a bellows type (assuming PSS), in fact they should specifically be kept grease-free. 

 

Whatever type of gland it has the Cutless bearing would not have split. I agree that it was probably a Vetus gland. I used bellows as a genre tic term to refer to the rubber body. For instance the early Volvo glands did not have an actual bellows, but the rubber moulding acted as bellows would.

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The new rule pump, apparently senses every 2 mins if theirs water

also has a test button.

 

but yes just flicking the bilge pump switch, whether listening to a noise, lifting a float switch still doesn’t prove the water pumps over board!

the only way is filling your bilge up a bit.

if the bilge is dirty oily, then take a bucket down their placing bucket is right on the bottom.

 

 

i have tried to post a video of what was happening, but keeps saying file too large. Even cutting it down to 12 seconds?
This will be my fault 😂 


reason I’m trying to make the point, I imagine theirs lots of people all over that test their pumps by noise, lifting up float.  It’s not good enough I’m afraid.

i imagine if a boat does sink, insurance will pay out tho?

 

my old boat princess lily got craned out last week. That went down because a gate valve was at fault, leaving Princess lily on the bottom. Insurance paid out in full

Again  bilge pumps?

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2 hours ago, bigcol said:

The new rule pump, apparently senses every 2 mins if theirs water

also has a test button.

 

but yes just flicking the bilge pump switch, whether listening to a noise, lifting a float switch still doesn’t prove the water pumps over board!

the only way is filling your bilge up a bit.

if the bilge is dirty oily, then take a bucket down their placing bucket is right on the bottom.

 

 

i have tried to post a video of what was happening, but keeps saying file too large. Even cutting it down to 12 seconds?
This will be my fault 😂 


reason I’m trying to make the point, I imagine theirs lots of people all over that test their pumps by noise, lifting up float.  It’s not good enough I’m afraid.

i imagine if a boat does sink, insurance will pay out tho?

 

my old boat princess lily got craned out last week. That went down because a gate valve was at fault, leaving Princess lily on the bottom. Insurance paid out in full

Again  bilge pumps?

Are you on shore supply, as I think you will find that has a constant current draw, OK for a day or two but if like a lot of people the boat is left for 3 or 4 months unattended it will add up.

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52 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Are you on shore supply, as I think you will find that has a constant current draw, OK for a day or two but if like a lot of people the boat is left for 3 or 4 months unattended it will add up.

Yes I do agree, but Folks wouldn’t leave the boat for weeks on end, without that resource. they may have solar panels.

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32 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Or, say the boat was not properly maintained in accordance with the policy requirements.


ah yes Alan, how can people prove otherwise ? Pump was tested before I went away, and for many reasons the pump didn’t pump!

or could there be a situation on a very well maintained boat, that it sinks because of a gland, or hose let water in, eventually it sinks.

If a gland ,bilge-pump ,toilet thru hull hose, anything, the insurance company could say the same was not properly maintained!

is it so every part of your boat should be properly maintained, if anything happens, even theft somthing on the vessel was not properly maintained.   Nightmare

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