An assortment of stupid questions

[axeslinger1957]

Sorry about the title -- I could not have come up with a less descriptive one if I had tried. I have a list of questions that I have been unable to answer satisfactorily using search functionality.

1) The plug empties water from some kind of formed "bowl" or "pan" in front of the transom. It appears that if I am going to install a bilge pump -- which I am -- I would install it so that it draws water from the lowest point in this formed thing. That means drilling shallow holes into the formed thing in order to fasten the bilge pump holder. Is it sufficient to use short sheet metal screws, short holes and then some kind of leakproofing (5200 or other sealant?) to mount the pump holder? Can I use rigid PVC to take the pump outflow, except for the point before the through-hull where the loop or hump needs to be?

2) I did not have any functional wiring or gauges when I bought this boat. Believe it or not, I DID have what looks like a speedometer pitot hanging off the transom. No hose or speedometer, though. Should I just assume this pitot is bad and unconditionally replace it, or is there a minimally-invasive way to bring it back to life?

3) I did manage to take this boat out for three or four short trips last year. Each time, the battery was flatter than a pancake before departure and had to be recharged. I did NOT use a maintainer in between trips. I plan to change that this year. I have a 1978 Evinrude 70 horse outboard. The pertinent question is, do I have an alternator or other mechanism to recharge the battery while the motor is running? I cannot conclusively answer this, but I suspect I do not.

4) This boat is fiberglass. I plan to attempt to take my daughter tubing in it. As I want to do this safely, I have been considering getting one of those digital depth gauges with the in-hull "hockey puck" transducer. Would one of those work quickly and reliably enough at around 20MPH to warn me that I was headed for shallow water or a submerged obstacle?

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

please post the type/size of boat, but it sounds like a basic hull like a privateer or carolina skiff.
1. put the bilge pump in the well and if it isn't self-bailing (you can pull the plug and it won't fill with water) a float switch. You can drill short screws into the hull there; it's thick. Use stainless.
2. You don't need guages to operate but if you had one, a tach with an hour meter is the one to have. There's no speed limit so a speedometer is not important. Your knowledge of safe boating and handling your vessel is.
3. Get a new battery. Boat batteries are notoriously short-lived. Your motor should be recharging it.
4. The depth guage tells you how deep it is under your depth finder, so it's too late for obstructions or sand bars. You can only track gentle changes in the bottom. It's better to know your water and how to read the surface. Also the tube will run in a few inches of water; you won't. If you boat in a soft bottom area, you have some margin of error. Use your depth finder to learn about the water, but not for safety from going aground while running.
Assuming you have a boat <17 feet on a plane, you draw only several inches.

Take a boater safety course, and get either an owner's manual or guide book for a boat/motor like yours.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

1/ just us epoxy and mount the pump base. in the lowest part. no need for screws. use flexible hose all the way.

2/replace it, use 3M 4200 to seal the screw holes. the kit is cheaper that buying parts.

3/ the motor has a stator, that creats electricity to operate the motor, it also has a rectifier, that converts the AC stator output, into DC power to charge the battery, it the rectifer is bad it will not charge the battery. but it is best to make sure the battery has a full charge after use, and then the maintainer. fully charged batteries last much longer than discharged.

4/ not really, you need to "learn" the water you navigate, expecially when towing.

read these: http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=300472

http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=226285

 

[ShaneCarroll]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

If your boat layout is like I suspect, you have an area directly in front of the outboard that is open, the bilge pump does not go in there, it goes on the bottom, bottom of the hull.

Remove the pitot.

Buy a new battery, as the boat most likely needs one anyways.

Before you take your daughter tubing, you should get used to the channels and where sand bars or obstacles might be. Just idle around for a while (of course out of everyone's way), and watch where most of the other larger boats go. If they can make it through there, you should be able to.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

Do you have a tachometer? One of the secondary benefits of having one is that it tells you that your charging system is working because it reads the stator pulses.

 

[axeslinger1957]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

Whoa! Feels like the Inquisition!

OK...

It's a 17foot 6 inch lapstrake/deep V fiberglass speedboat of unknown parentage. Plate says "Sears". There's no HIN. I have pictures I'm going to post as soon as I get them reformatted.

I am signed up to take the boater safety course.

I plan to make it a point to pull the bathymetric chart and any maps I can find of unfamiliar lakes. I also plan to take a slow tour to attempt to find the places not to go.

No arguments about the battery. I just can't find any data about whether the motor I have can recharge.

This boat had no pump at all when I got it. It also has no water in the cabin area. I had planned to put the pump in the area "in front" of the plug opening since this is the lowest point I can reach. To get any lower, I would have to cut into this pan area.

 

[QC]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

No inquisition, we just know what questions to ask based on your post . . . We can also guess on your experience too. I will say you sound like a very bright guy doing a lot of research on something you have little experience with. Nothing wrong with that!!!! I can also guess that you are a Heterosexual male and you probably own a weedwhacker Old joke, sorry . . .

Back to the inquis . . . err . . questions. Outboard? We need to determine if question one is about a Splash Well or a Bilge. If it is an Outboard you have both. Bilge needs a pump, Splash Well doesn't . . .

 

[ezmobee]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

I had a sneaking suspicion he was talking about the splash well.....

The splash well is not the bilge. It does not need a plug. It is designed to catch water that splashes in around the outboard and allow it to drain back out.

The bilge is the area under the deck (floor) of the boat. You should have a bilge pump mounted down there. There should be a way to access that area somewhere in near the rear of the boat. Sometimes I've seen it just be an access plate in the splash well.

Your Evinrude definitely has a charging system and should charge the battery. However, unlike a car it doesn't need the alternator to run.

 

[QC]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

Ohhhhhhhh . . . now I see Evinrude My bad! OK, one of the Inquisition items off the list. Still might be talking about the Bilge of course. I personally like the epoxy method and have done it several times.

 

[oops!]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

1/ just us epoxy and mount the pump base. in the lowest part. no need for screws. use flexible hose all the way.

2/replace it, use 3M 4200 to seal the screw holes. the kit is cheaper that buying parts.

that pan area in the bottom of the boat is actually the hull.....screws in there are not good

I can also guess that you are a Heterosexual male and you probably own a weedwhacker Old joke, sorry . . .

BAAAAAAA HAAAAAA HAAAAAAAA

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

17' sears lapstrake with a cabin--I am mystified.

 

[axeslinger1957]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

17' sears lapstrake with a cabin--I am mystified.

So am I, so am I! I'll send some pictures when (if) things quiet down.

As to the lawn equipment and other stuff: yes, yes and yes.

Oh, and the "Inquisition" thing: I didn't mean that. I just meant to say that the questions were coming thick and fast. :redface:

All right, now the "splashwell" concept makes sense. This would explain why it took so long to drain water out of the transom hole! And afterward, there was STILL water in the molded area! Yikes! Umm, if there is no obvious opening in the splashwell (I haven't seen one yet), do I have to remove the splashwell to get to this area? Or, God forbid, do I have to remove part of the floor? I do NOT want to do that! Keep in mind that there is a STRONG possibility this boat predates Apollo 11. Also, given this poor boat's treatment and "modifications" by previous owners, I would be shocked and awed if there is a bilge pump -- even a non-functional one. And get this: the dude I bought it from used it for deep-lake fishing!

OK, next the engine: So a 1978 Evinrude 70 is SUPPOSED to recharge the battery? Ruh-roh - Houston, we've got a problem! I ain't gettin' no recharge! I can get the shop manual (and probably should), but are there any high-probability suspects I can check in the meantime!

OOOHH!!!! I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING! Is there a way to put a multimeter on the motor to determine if it is doing what it has to do to recharge a battery (I don't know if that would be a voltage load or a current load)? I could start it on muffs using one of those jump start power units.

 

[Susquehanna Squid]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

I doubt you can remove the splashwell as most of the boats I have seen you cannot. But, there should be a way to get under the decking/floor and this is where your bilge pump would go. As for attaching it, I pound the river in my boat from 0-45 mph and it gets rough let me tell you and my bilge pump is not attached to anything. I just made sure that it is as close to the transome and keel as possible. Now, I can easily open the back and make sure it stays put but it really has never moved. One more thing, it is very important to know your water and what is under it and never use a depth/fish finder as a warning device! Other than that, enjoy the project.

 

[Susquehanna Squid]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

One more thing, in regards to the charging issue, all you have to do is put the meter on the battery terminals while it is not running and then do the same when it is. The voltage should go up while it is running and this will tell you if the motor is sending a strong enough current to charge the battery.

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

invest in a trip to an OB mechanic and pay him for a "go-over."

send a photo of the hull; the descriptions aren't bringnig images to mind. Maybe you have a "solid" deck (floor) with no actual bilge. The area between is the 'inner hull' which is supposed to stay dry, and thus doesn't have a drain. However on older boats there can be a leak and that area can get waterlogged. Then there's the decision whether it's worth it to drain it, which is a slow drip process.
Let me ask this: does the well we're discussing have a screw-in metal plug or a brass/rubber pull out? If the latter, it's designed so you can pull it when you're running and drain the boat. In that case, most likely you have no bilge, although my old starcrafts had pull plugs in the stern, and a bilge under the floor. And a splashwell.
And how much water is it holding? there's always some back there.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

Yeah, lets see some pics of the interior of your boat. We'll be much better able to help.

 

[axeslinger1957]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

invest in a trip to an OB mechanic and pay him for a "go-over."

send a photo of the hull; the descriptions aren't bringnig images to mind. Maybe you have a "solid" deck (floor) with no actual bilge. The area between is the 'inner hull' which is supposed to stay dry, and thus doesn't have a drain. However on older boats there can be a leak and that area can get waterlogged. Then there's the decision whether it's worth it to drain it, which is a slow drip process.
Let me ask this: does the well we're discussing have a screw-in metal plug or a brass/rubber pull out? If the latter, it's designed so you can pull it when you're running and drain the boat. In that case, most likely you have no bilge, although my old starcrafts had pull plugs in the stern, and a bilge under the floor. And a splashwell.
And how much water is it holding? there's always some back there.

1) The plug that came with the boat was one of the screw-in-from-the-outside types with the rubber sealing thing that gets "thicker" as you screw the plug in. I can see daylight through this opening as I look at what I've been calling the bilge, but might be the splashwell. Now, this area is at floor level. It's where the battery/batteries and gas tank go. There IS a kind of shelf or depression above this that's sort of a "roof" over the battery/fuel area. It's where the steering cables thread through and connect to the outboard.

2) I have access to an outboard mechanic. He's out of commission temporarily because his son was born five days ago.

3) The hole for the plug is only a few inches above the bottom of the transom. If I can see this when I'm looking at the battery/fuel shelf, wouldn't that mean that there can't be too much space underneath this area?

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

never heard of a plug a few inches above the bottom of the transom. We really need pictures and then we can reconvene. And I think the plug you describe is the kind you pull to drain nws the tightening function. Solid plugs are threaded and scew into threads, typically 1/2" or 5/8" diameter; "pull plugs" are about an inch or more in diameter, rubber, with a tightening nut for adjustment.

 

[axeslinger1957]

Re: An assortment of stupid questions

never heard of a plug a few inches above the bottom of the transom. We really need pictures and then we can reconvene. And I think the plug you describe is the kind you pull to drain nws the tightening function. Solid plugs are threaded and scew into threads, typically 1/2" or 5/8" diameter; "pull plugs" are about an inch or more in diameter, rubber, with a tightening nut for adjustment.

Right. Picture is worth 1000 words, and all that. OK, let me see if I can get them reformatted and uploaded tonight -- or at least this weekend. All depends on what the spousal and tax deduction units have planned...

 

[axeslinger1957]

You want pictures? We got 'em!

You want pictures? We got 'em!

"Splashwell"?

Closeup showing hole for drain plug:

Pulled back:

Oh, and Home Cookin', these are especially for you: