Sorry Psmith, I'm gonna hang on to it.
OK, so an update. Starting last Wednesday, I've been working off and on at getting this leak fixed. Got serious about it Saturday and Sunday. Real serious, since my brother was gonna head off to Arkansas come Monday with the boat for a week to get married and honeymoon with some fishing thrown in.
To recap, the drain in the livewell was leaking around the seal, plus the auto bilge was not working. Only way to get to the drain is to pull everything you see in this pic, which by the way, just got all installed last week. Lucky me. So, pull the first TM battery on the left, slide the right battery under the charger. Remove the cranking battery, remove the oil tank, remove the wall that the Charger is attached to and then the two metal floors under the batteries and tanks.
Seemed simple enough. That was until I stripped two of the SS cap screws holding the wall in place. ARG!!!!!! Had to break off and go get a screw extractor and proceeded to break 2, yes two good bits on the stewpit things. Got the bright idea to grind 'em down with an air grinder then yank 'em free. Dadgum screws are made of crytonite and after ruining 2 grinding stones and going through about 400 gallons of air at 90 PSI, I decided to go to my favorite mechanic, Jerry, and throw myself at his mercy. You see, none of Jerry's tools have "Made in China" stamped on 'em. Plus he knows where all of his stuff is. LOL.
So, after drilling them with a carbide tipped bit and putting a good left handed drill bit on it, the first one gave up without too much fuss. 'Course, I think I softened that one up a good bit for him. Now, the one I hosed up with the air grinder had gotten pretty ticked at me and gave Jerry quite a bit of rasberries before it gave up after 20 minutes or so.
So, back to the house I go. Decided a good dose of air conditioning and a good night's rest would allow me to have better sucess on Sunday.
After Church, I get back at it. Removed the wall and charger and removed all of the floor plates and...........uh oh. Yeah, I know where the drain is and in fact, I can touch the compression nut with my middle and my ring finger as long as Gonnabe holds my feet, but there's no way to put an adjustable wrench on it even if I could peel away the 3" of remaining silicone.
Hmmmmm. On top of that, that ain't the real source of my leak. Oh, it's leaking, but not enough to be the real problem. Eureka! Caulk the snot out of it from the inside!!!!
OK, moving on. Let's see, the auto bilge is completely locked. No problem, I got a spare in the shop. Used, but hey, it'll save me from running all over town looking for one on Sunday. Same make, same model, but the dang base is different, so I had to take the old one out, splice and heat shrink the connectors. And I'm on to the next project. Sure was fun hanging upside down for 30 minutes though.
A'ite, now we're progressing. AH HA! This thing is chuck slap full of Mayfairs and the housing on the Livewell fill line or aerator was cracked and leaking like a sieve. Trouble was, it's mounted on it's side and leaking directly beneath itself and that's why it was hard to spot. No problem. Now, this one is one worth going to the store for. And I just happen to know that Wally World has a Tsunami cartridge pump on the shelf that would be a perfect match with a straight pump shank and a 90 degree discharge. OK, so remove the plate holding it in place. Uh oh, the shank goes into a T which is glued in place in the metal retainer that's bolted in. No way to remove it without breaking the T or cutting the pump out. Hmmmm, just so happens I have a 2 Mayfair housings I saved from an old boat in the shop, but they are 90 intakes. Hmmmm, looks to me, the end cap is a different part number, but the housing itself is universal, so I removed the screws on the intake cap and yep, they'll screw right down with the 4 screws from the straight intake. Bingo. Took me about 30 minutes since the metal retainer was in the way of 3 of the screws, but I got it.
OK, so splice and heat shrink it in, replace the cartridge and screw it back down. Hmmm, the lay of the pumps is pusing the auto bilge over on the valve actuator for the livewells putting it in a bind and making it hard to open and close. No problem, a chunk of treated 2x4 later and it's spaced properly and wedged tight enough that it'll stay out of the way.
All that's left is to fill and check my handy work. Yep, no leaks. I'm in bidness. Just for kicks while I had it all out, I filled the bilge to make sure no exterior fittings were leaking because I sure as heck don't want to be removing all this stuff again anytime soon. Yep, no leaks. I'm good to go.
So, reinstall the floors, drop the wall in place - I'll bet that charger weight 50 lbs by the way. Reroute the wires back through the wall. Reistall the oil tank, reinstall the cranking batt, reinstall the two TM batteries and spend 20 minutes trying to get the wires to the right batteries, put it all back in place, test everything and voila. I'm good to go.
All that's left is to jack the jackplate up and put the motor toter back on, put all the tools back up and go lay down. DOH! Jack won't jack. Hmmmm, oh I see, stuff the wires back out of the way and didn't notice them. OK, no problem.
Hey, check that out. This thing has a livewell pumpout on it. Hadn't noticed that before. Hit the switch and it's trickling like an old man. Yep, the pumpout pump needs to be replaced.
Oh well, at least it's back together for my brother's honeymoon and it only cost me a single weekend in the hottest weather so far this year.
So, in summary, you too can be a boat rigger. All you need is about 15 hours total, an understanding wife, a mechanic on standby and a realization that it's really hard to get it right the first time.
Wannabe...
PS, my brother called this AM from the road. They changed their mind and decided to go to Georgia and then on to South Carolina for the wedding and decided that taking the boat was just too much trouble.
PS. My bro
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Originally Posted by Wannabe...
Sorry Psmith, I'm gonna hang on to it.
