Speedometer

[speedysprocket]

If your bellows are leaking, you can rust your u joint pretty quick. While they might be due for replacing anyways, running them excessively in a bad state can wear or damage other parts as well...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mmwjr]

Yes you can add a second pump and make it a bigger one. You can also add a alarm that sounds if too much water is in the bilge, adjustable.

[shrew]

Do you always trailer your boat? I wouldn't leave the boat in the water for extended periods like this. I got back to my boat a few weeks ago and the breaker on the dock had tripped. Fridge ran down the house batteries. I would hate to see that condition while relying on a bilge pump.

[brineair]

Originally Posted by shrew

Do you always trailer your boat? I wouldn't leave the boat in the water for extended periods like this. I got back to my boat a few weeks ago and the breaker on the dock had tripped. Fridge ran down the house batteries. I would hate to see that condition while relying on a bilge pump.

I do always trailer the boat yes. Never leave it in the water unless I'm sleeping on it really.

Also to let everyone know that's been posting to and following this thread I found the leak. My cable bellow was completely cut in half. I'm assuming this was due to deterioration over time.

Had the guy that found it look at the main bellow and he said it looked to be fine. No stress cracking or anything. And the 3rd bellow is a performance bellow and he said I shouldn't have any problems with that really.

I'm not sure how long it has been like this. The reason I say this is because when my outdrive was up water would pour in as if someone turned on a faucet. As soon as my outdrive was down though (which is how it is as soon as I put it in the water) the leak completely stops. However I know that water is still slowly leaking in at the cable bellow. So I'm assuming that's why my bilge would pump every 10 or 15 minutes.

Hard to believe, but it's been like that since last year. Hard to believe I haven't had a major issue on my hands due to the leak. Could have easily sunk the boat.

Thank you all again for making this out to be more of a priority than I thought.

[shrew]

Incidentally, you should be able to calculate the volume of water leaking.

There are 3,600 seconds per hour. Take the pump capacity (GPH) and divide by 3600. Pumps are rated at volume pumping horizontally, so if there is any head (there will be) capacity is reduced. Let's take a 500 GPH pump and assume you're getting 300 GPH of actually discharge.

3600/300 = 12 (seconds per gallon).

Now record the actual run time and frequency of the pump cycles.

example: 6 seconds x 5 times/hr. = 30 seconds total run time/ hour.

30/12 = 2.5 gallons/hr. (60 gallons per day).