I set up a 500 GPH Rule pump with a check valve at bottom of the bilge. It runs for an additional 30 seconds after the built in float drops.
It leaves very little water in the bilge. It's connected to a 3/4 in hose and it bypasses the house battery switch but is wired to a breaker on the panel. I'm thinking a larger pump plumbed down to 3/4 would been even better.

In the event the alarm goes off, higher up in the bilge is a 3000 GPH that must be manually started, I'll probably wire to it's own float switch some day.

Both pumps are plumbed to anti siphon vents and independent thru hulls.

I couldn't find any oil leaks under Sea Duty's W60, what I did find when I took the engine apart was a crush washer missing under the number 1 injector. It was weeping diesel down the front of the engine later to end up in the bilge but not really soaking into the diapers underneath the engine (I think it was going underneath the pads). The bilge is still a mucky mess even though I've scrubbed it repeatedly with simple green.

The beauty of the deep bilge is it keeps the water in one spot and makes is less likely to find its way onto any wiring, hardware or such when heeled over. The boats going to leak when you have green water coming over the boat in a heavy sea (I'm sure some of you will say they have watertight vessels). In big seas the last thing I want is water sloshing around causing other issues.

Chuck's 2 cents.

On 4/8/08, Aaron Lynch < ([email][/email])> wrote:

For weeks I have been wondering where the oil in my engine is going.

Today I decided to actually dig in and find out what’s going on, I didn;t think it was in the bilge because I never saw much of a sheen when running the bilge pump.

Today I discovered that nearly 3 gal of water remains in the bilge after the pump runs ‘dry’

Before I even tackle the mysterious leak of oil, I would really like to fix the stinky, hard to access bilge and rig up a better pump/high water alarm system.

I know at least one owner filled the bottom of the bilge with concrete, and I’m thinking of doing the same just to have a bit better access. What are the cons of doing that?

Does anyone have a system that gets rid of almost all of the water in the bilge? The submersible pumps seem to backwash a tremendous amount of water.

As to the oil leak in the w60, there is no obvious leak, the diapers underneath are spotless. Any ideas where I might have a weird oil leak?

Post generated from Pearson424 Forum using Mail2Forum

Are you sure it is oil and not fuel? Take a good look around the bottom of your tank cradle. There may be fuel weeping around your engine pan and into the bilge. It could also be one of the fuel lines, possibly the fill or return, but probably not the supply.

I put a dab of bleach in the bilge. This keeps critters from growing down there. I use the manual bilge pump to drain the bilge. This tests the thing regularly and does a reasonable job of pumping it out.

I too would like to fill it with something, but concrete sounds extreme. Still thinking about it though. I tried to buy some special concrete that has plastic aggregate instead of stone. The stuff even floats. The seller wouldn’t ship a small quantity.

Rich

“Is the shower sump box permanently affixed or is it removable?”

That depends how tall you are. I’m 6 ft tall and I can’t get down there.
However, my girlfriend is only 5′ 4″, so she fits well down there. This is
good, because she just spent a bunch of time removing what the PO put down
in my bilge. It had been filled with polyurethane foam. Which proceeded to
soak up every oil, diesel and holding tank spill for the last 12 years. The
boat always stunk, so I started removing the foam. It was black and smelled
like shit. Whatever you do, don’t fill the bilge with foam.

Now that I have cleaned it out. I am looking forward to having all that
extra storage space for storm anchors, etc.

Back to your question, my old shower sump is attached at the bottom with
fiberglass. However, if you can get down there, it should be easy to grind
out.

Paul

Post generated from Pearson424 Forum using Mail2Forum

Let me get this straight, your girlfried crawled into your stinky bilge and
cleaned it out!! I need to meet her. You meeting up with us at Three Mile
Harbor?

Whatever you do, don’t give her up. How did you find her, with an ad like
this?

“Wanted, woman who is willing to climb into the darkest, worst smelling hole
on the east coast and chip out smelly chunks of plastic, then clean the
inside out with chlorox and simple-green. Please send photos and
references”

Rich

Hi Aaron,

I just used foam to add a holding tank in the bilge and am going to remove the sump (or move it to under the shower) to allow me to get to the remaining part of the bilge (under the v-drive and so forth).

Bob

On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 12:24 AM, Aaron Lynch < ([email][/email])> wrote: