1989 Strainer / Livewell thru-hull

[Circle Hooked]

Here is a thought...regardless of pump style.

You are running at 35 mph in the ocean. The thru-hull for the livewell is located near the stern, near the lowest part of the hull, as it should be.

The boat is running, hopping from swell to swell. How much time does the unassisted thru-hull spend in clean water? Is it actually clean ocean water for the pump to suck up? Or is it mostly froth water, running across a cap? Will a diaphragm pump suffer an early demise from failure to cool by not getting clean water, and plenty of it?

The boat is doing 35. My thought is, without a forced pickup...any pump will be sucking an air/water mix at speed.

Just my humble 1 cent thought.

Thoughts?

Scott that's a good thought  but I think alot has to do with the style boat, mine or Bruces for example are alittle on the heavy side so i would doubt the stern would ever come out of the water enough to suck air unless you really launched it which I can say I never have, and my bait is always in good shape, and one more point my pump I just replaced is as old as the boat, 15, the old one blew the thermal fuse and it wouldn't reset, and it blowing was my fault to begin with because I left it on in wash down mode and the pressure build up over heated it.

[wingtime]

Scott doesn't the new pump have a pressure switch to turn it off?

[Circle Hooked]

Scott doesn't the new pump have a pressure switch to turn it off?

It does but I didn't know till I read the manual for the new pump not to leave it in that state for more the 20 min or it will trip the fuse, That's what happened to the old one, I forgot about it for a couple hours then went to use it and no go.

Oh and I replaced it with the same pump.

[gran398]

I'm with both of you. Know your boats aren't jumpers.

This is for sake of discussion, for those referencing in the future. This thread started with the poster cutting off a thru-hull from the outside, and here we are.

I'm just thinking about frothy water...or no water at times. So that any pump doesn't have to work harder. Know for a fact that John Dupree's CCP wouldn't prime with the factory thru-hull, no pickup.

Just food for thought.

[Circle Hooked]

This has evolved into a pretty informative thread about livewells, heck it got me to do some work on mine, that and talking to you Scott on the phone, you gave me the extra push and probably didn't know it  

[gran398]

Thanks Scott

Last thing I wanted to do was stir the chit-pot as to what is "right". We are brothers, and if it works for you guys, it works for me.

Up here....diaphragm pumps aren't used much for livewell application. Washdown only. Maintain a constant line pressure, then pump again to pressurize per usage.

I'll throw advice here and there where I feel can give good input. This is one of those subjects. Small boat livewell plumbing was invented here back in the early 70's as a spin-off to live bait KM fishing. Anyone so inclined can search and find that this fishery was invented/perfected here. Several of us here were involved in it. Some ended up being big names for Team Fountain when they took the SKA by storm. In retrospect...kinda sucks