Planned vs. unplanned
When our friend Ken described an unplanned repair job that materialized on his boat, I could completely empathize as we had a similar repair situation pop up yesterday too. That’s right, not the water pump job, another one! Ken commented that the not-on-the-list items, the unplanned but necessary repairs, sometimes overtake the ones that we have been expecting. Sad, but a fact of boat life.
On the water pump front, I think we now finally have that sorted (knock on wood). We received the replacement pump on Friday (Sherwood H5), and I installed it just before sundown. I’d like to say that the installation was plug-and-play but it wasn’t quite that easy. Even though the bolt pattern was identical to the original out-of-production Jabsco pump, the angle of the intake pipe was not. Trying to use the original pieces to connect it resulted in the intake hose being blocked by the engine’s frame. With a bunch of random bits from Budget Marine, I was ultimately able to piece together a solution, and it works, sans leaks. The next step will be to get a new shaft made for the Jabsco so that we have a spare.
Back to yesterday’s unexpected issue, repair still in progress, our generator has stopped producing the proper voltage. This is not the first time that we have experienced this problem, and previously it has been caused by a broken wire to one of the capacitors in the generator’s back end. This time around I also found a broken wire but after repairing it, the generator is still only producing half the voltage that it should be. On the bright side, the wind is honking here in the anchorage, so with the help of our wind generator and solar panels, our batteries are very happy!
Mike, when you rebuild and test the Jabsco, please give us a follow up. Thanks!
Wilco.
Mike – we have an ONAN 6KW and although our experience may not be the same as yours, you may benefit from it. Our generator has about 1100 hours on it. According to the service manual, the brushes should be inspected, and changed, if necessary – every 500 hours. When we were in Tonga last year, the generator would run for a few minutes, cutout (diesel kept running but the generator output became intermittent) and then be OK for a few minutes. It was not a fuel or coolant problem.
Whoever wrote our ONAN manual did not expect the generator to be installed on a boat, nor in a sound reduction enclosure! It is impossible to access the brushes area with the sound reduction enclosure in place and it would take a lot of effort to remove all the panels. So, I cut an access panel hole in the back end, and converted the hole into a little door (about 6″ by 6″). Now it is very easy to remove the door and gain access to the brushes. I still think it is impossible to remove the brushes without taking out the generator from the boat. However, I did gain sufficient access to determine that the brushes still have lots of wear left on them, but the commuting shaft that they run on was quite dirty, black, with carbon dust. I cleaned the shaft by slowly turning the it (grabbing the belts and turning the crankshaft a bit) and rubbing a scotch bright pad over the commutating shaft and vacuuming the dirt away. This completely eliminated my problem with the generator cutting out. I wonder if you might have a similar problem?
Hi Wade. Thanks. One of my other friends suggested that the brushes should be checked too.
Mike- I thought I would a share a hard-won (expensive) tip on generic replacement water pumps. There is a small hole in the pump casting that drains any salt water that gets by the pump impeller seal so that it doesn’t contaminate the pump bearings. The Manufacture has one there but it would be pure luck if it is at the bottom, where it needs to be, in your finished installation. You may need to mark the bottom of the casting while it is mounted on your engine and if necessary disassemble your pump and drill another drain hole where it belongs.
Until I did this on my boat I had to rebuild/replace the pump every year which gets a bit expensive!
I enjoy reading about your adventures in boat ownership. One definitely needs to be a “Jack of all trades” to keep a boat running.
Interesting. I think I noted the hole you’re speaking of but didn’t know its purpose. I’ll have check its location now that it is installed.