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Has anyone come up with an easy way to access and clean the bilge of a DE38? My original bilge pump is still in it's original location under the sink (Although I now have a new one installed directly below the engine). I would love to get the old one out but I can only just reach it's cut wires and it doesn't seem to be keen on removal . While down there, I'll give the area a clean and perhaps a coat of paint.
Now, bearing in mind that I am a Firey and have had my fair share of exposure to confined spaces, I am happy to have a go at squeezing under the sink while someone holds my ankles. (Yes I will be wearing BA due to posibility of low oxygen levels) but before I jump in I just thought I'd see if anyone has a better idea.
I believe the original bilge pump was just placed in situ and theoretically should just lift out. Does anyone know if this is the case or could it be held in place by bolts or clamps? I'd hate to rip half the hull out with the bilge pump.
I don't want to cut any holes in the existing flooring.
Although the thought did cross my mind, I won't put my 11year old daughter down there. I think there's rules against that sort of thing these days.
I imagine some of you more inventive types may have come up with some interesting extension poles with sponges or brushes on them for some of the other areas of the bilge so I'd love to hear about that too.
Maybe I could drill into the top of the old bilge pump and then attach a shackled block and get a rope giving me a mechanical advantage of 2 to 1 to rip it out. (Surely it shouldn't be that hard).
Dave
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I think Valkyr has one of the best solutions for a bilge pump setup I have seen. The pump is in the engine compartment. It is a jabsco electrically driven diaphragm pump.
http://www.jabsco.com/products...../index.htm
The pump is high and dry in the bilge compartment. A hose runs from the intake on the pump to the bottom of the bilge and has a filter box on the end of the hose to keep it from getting clogged up. There is also a inline filter on the intake hose. (It was like this when I got it. However with the rough filter box on the end of the hose I'm not sure of the utility of the much finer inline filter. I feel it might actually be restricting my water flow.) I had thought to put a secondary large rule bilge pump I have in the bilge. I ran into the common complaint of access also. I couldn't fit the body of the pump past the engine into the bilge. Probably the reason the jabsco pump was used in the first place. I found I could hook the ends of the hoses in the bilge with a heavy clothes hanger and bring them up till I could grab them. Other than that it is a bitch to access anything down there.
When I was researching this pump I found that it has a rather drastic pricetag. In the $400 range. About the same time I ran accros a just rebuilt used one on ebay and purchased it for 70 dollars as a replacement. I'm actually thinking about installing it in parallel with the original one though. Then instead of having to switch it out, probably when I need it, I can just flip a switch and keep pumping 🙂
I did a rough clean of the bilge when I got the boat. It amounted to getting a hose and mostly filling the bilge with fresh water. Then lots of dish soap and a mop and some serious swishing. 🙂 then pumping it all out. I plan on doing it again with a pressure washer though. Then some tsp and as good a scrub as I can do. Both to the bilge and the engine compartment. Then I am going to get some of the charing fire resistant epoxy paint and paint everything I can reach of the walls, overhead and bilge with it. It is a white gloss that is supposedly easy to clean. It will also resist 1800 degree direct flame for 10+ minutes. Here is a link to the manufactures page http://www.cotelind.com/ceasefire.html
I wanted to clean it up and make it look better anyway. This way I can make it safer in also.
On Valkyr the entire bottom of the compartment under the sink comes out so that you have easy access to that area. Is your boat like that? If so the pump just be way back from just under the sink. There are a lot of areas on Valkyr that are hard to impossible to reach. Every time I find one I keep trying to think of places I can put access ports etc.. so that I can get access or make a new little storage area.
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On DE38 Eclipse, the bilge access is limited to, either under the galley sinks or in the engine compartment aft of the fuel tank - no help I'm afraid.
I installed a multi-purpose pump with 2 Y-valves and their respective combination of hoses. For water in and using water from a Y-valve (with filter) in the head intake, it is for: 1. deck wash-down / cleaning mud off the anchor and chain - 2. (salt) water in the galley sink. For water out, it is for 3. pumping water overboard from the shower sump - 4. an extra bilge pump.
Also, should the bilge pumps fail, I installed a Y-valve between the engine water intake sea-cock and the engine - with the 1 reinforced hose leading to the engine and the 2nd reinforced hose into the bilge with a filter on the end. The Y-valve may be switched to either or both hoses.
I can recommend the Water Witch bilge pump switch.
Martin – DE38 Cutter s/v Eclipse
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A (Y) Valve to the engine water pump sounds like a great and easy modification to give you a little more pumping capacity for the bilge.
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Thanks for all your valuable tips gents.
It is reassuring to know that others are faced with the same challenges and it sounds like our boats are all pretty much the same below the floor. I have finally managed to get the old original pump and it's associated pipework out. I ended up cutting the pipes at strategic locations to then pull them out. The hardest part of pipe to cut was at the bilge pump as the pipe was double clamped and I could only see about two inches of it before it went aft under the fuel tank. After various attempts I found success with a sharp knife taped to my boathook and a lot of elbow grease. I had considered heating the blade to make life easier but didn't want to introduce a heat source into this confined space with potential flamable liquids in it. I also had limited sucess with a few hacksaw blades but they tended to bend and break too easily.
The original pump was mounted on a perspex base and had one screw into the hull by about 3mm. Fortunately this just pulled out as there is no way that I could have accessed it with a screwdriver. It only just fitted past the fuel tank as I removed it.
Most of this work was done via the area below the sink as well as the floor hatch above the aft water tank and I was lucky to have a mate help me with lighting etc during the final removal.
So my next move is to install the new rule 1500. I have made a base plate of perspex and put some clamps and a lifting setup on it so that I can do annual inspections. I'll attach photos once it's all done.
Scott, a word of warning with your setup. Tondelayo had a similar setup when I bought her and during my delivery from Townsville to Jervis Bay we got a fair bit of water in the bilge due to a faulty/leaking PSS shaft seal where the prop shaft goes through the hull. The pump failed when bilge contaminants (mostly old engine room noise/heatproofing) made their way past the pick up filter and fouled the diaphram pump. Further reasearch showed that my particular pump (Shureflow Blaster 3.5gpm) was only meant for clean water so unless you can be sure that your filters are good enough it may be worth looking at a different pump designed specifically for bilge water. I too thought that by putting more filters in the pickup it would restrict the pumping capacity.
The good thing about that experience was that the manual hand pumped bilge pump worked a treat and pumped out all the bilge water and any contaminants easily. It does take a fair bit of pumping before it is primed as it is pulling the water quite a distance before it gets to the diaphragm. If you've never put your manual bilge pump to work may I suggest a manual bige pumping drill to make sure all is working well and get a feel for how long it takes before it's primed. We nearly gave up on it thinking it wasn't working the first time we used it.
Thanks once again for all your help and putting together such a great web site.
I'll post agin once I've installed the new pump and I'll try to include some photos.
Dave
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If I remember the pump I have is designed for bilge work... It also has a scrim? box on the end of the bilge hose to filter out bigger stuff. I plan on putting a redundant electric bilge pump in place and there is a whale gusher type manual bilge pump that with 5 or 6 pumps of the handle in the cockpit well will prime and flow 4 or 5 times as much water as the electric bilge pump. It pumps through 1 1/2 inch hose at least. maybe 2 inch.
I thought I had written something about this before and found his thread on bilge pumps that shows mine... Reading the manufactures blurb I put up it does seem to recomend an inline strainer.
http://downeasteryachts.com/fo.....bilge-pump
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I have the same pump as Scott, as well as a Rule 1500. The Rule is attached to a small piece of wood (something like a 1x2) and is below the engine. The wood piece allows it to be pulled up and lowered at will. Under the sink area are the two float switches attached to a 1x4. The board is screwed into the side of the sink cabinetry and can be raised and lowered by taking out those screws.
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Thats interesting.. the only part of the bilge I have seen is that under the engine. That is where the hoses and switches are on Valkyr. I thought that the fuel tank took up the rest of the bilge space.. It sounds as iff you can access or see some of it from under the sink .. I will have to take a look on valkyr and get a better grasp of whats there.
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I have been working on valkyr under the sink and don't understand how you guys have been working in the bilge from there. The fuel tank totally takes up the area between the bilge under the engine and the area under the sink. The upper bilge under the sink as I call it is much higher than the bilge under the engine so I don't see how having float switches there help.
It sounds as your boats are a little bit different than mine or I'm not understanding your description.
scott
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Scott Carle said:
I have been working on valkyr under the sink and don't understand how you guys have been working in the bilge from there. The fuel tank totally takes up the area between the bilge under the engine and the area under the sink. The upper bilge under the sink as I call it is much higher than the bilge under the engine so I don't see how having float switches there help.
It sounds as your boats are a little bit different than mine or I'm not understanding your description.
scott
I have a piece of 1/2 hard plastic tube that is attached to the pump with 2 big hose clamps, this comes up to the clear plastic and through a hole drilled just for the tube and the wires, I actually have 2, one is a spare that is ready to go if I need it. I can use a flashlight to shine down in the bilge to see them and move them if necessary. they seem to sit real solid there and haven't moved too far in the 15 years we have had the boat.
Scotty
svchipahoy
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DE32 Must be a bit different than the DE38 then in the layout there. Under the sink area is a bilge area that is 28 inches or so below the sole of the galley. The fuel tank sits flush on this upper bilge area as I call it. behind the fuel tank is the main bilge under the engine that drops down 4 or 5 ft from the galley sole.
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Scott Carle said:
I have been working on valkyr under the sink and don't understand how you guys have been working in the bilge from there. The fuel tank totally takes up the area between the bilge under the engine and the area under the sink. The upper bilge under the sink as I call it is much higher than the bilge under the engine so I don't see how having float switches there help.
It sounds as your boats are a little bit different than mine or I'm not understanding your description.
scott
Hi Scott,
Perhaps you have a larger capacity fuel Tank? (mine holds about 405Lts)
I have recently installed a new pump directly below the sink and a waterproof LED light so I don't have to grab a torch every time I want to inspect the bilge.(plus it lets me keep my hands free for working if needed).
I'll send you an email with photos so that you can see whether or not our bilges are the same. (I'm still useless at attaching photos to my posts).
I am now putting the finishing touches on a secondary pump, (mainly for when the boat is unattended) which is situated under the engine and is linked to a float switch . This one is at about the same depth as the primary one under the sink (maybe 4-5ft) but I think I'll put the float switch in the "Upper Bilge" as you describe it. That way it'll only activate if the "lower bilge" is full and should keep the boat afloat until I get on her to see what has caused such a large amount of water ingress. It will also be linked to an audible water alarm so that it would wake me in the night or perhaps draw attention from a passer by if I wasn't around.
The other advantage of putting the float switch in the upper bilge area is that I can easily reach it to give it a manual test every now and then and it's easier to wire it up.
Hope this helps.
Dave
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Dave,
I would put the secondary/larger pump float switch only a couple inches above the smaller primary one. If it can't keep up with the water comming in you want the second big one to start working almost imeadiatly rather than have the bilge already full and it having to pump all that water out and keep up with any water still coming in. The alarm is a good idea. You want to know as soon as possible that you have an issue happening so that you can find the leak and fix it asap. If you don't know about it till the bilge is full that could be a bad problem.
my tank from the factory is supposed to hold 90 gallons which is 340 Lts. My calculations of its volume based on what rough measurements I can make with it in place puts its volume at about 82 gallons. however I will want to measure it exactly from the inside once I get access to it to get a final accurate measurement.
Scott
Tondelayo said:
Hi Scott,
Perhaps you have a larger capacity fuel Tank? (mine holds about 405Lts)I have recently installed a new pump directly below the sink and a waterproof LED light so I don't have to grab a torch every time I want to inspect the bilge.(plus it lets me keep my hands free for working if needed).
I'll send you an email with photos so that you can see whether or not our bilges are the same. (I'm still useless at attaching photos to my posts).
I am now putting the finishing touches on a secondary pump, (mainly for when the boat is unattended) which is situated under the engine and is linked to a float switch . This one is at about the same depth as the primary one under the sink (maybe 4-5ft) but I think I'll put the float switch in the "Upper Bilge" as you describe it. That way it'll only activate if the "lower bilge" is full and should keep the boat afloat until I get on her to see what has caused such a large amount of water ingress. It will also be linked to an audible water alarm so that it would wake me in the night or perhaps draw attention from a passer by if I wasn't around.
The other advantage of putting the float switch in the upper bilge area is that I can easily reach it to give it a manual test every now and then and it's easier to wire it up.
Hope this helps.
Dave
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