"Peggie Hall" wrote

I'll bet money that's what's happened. All you have to do to confirm
it is check the water level in your tank.

The tank was bone dry.

If your heat exchanger were leaking, you wouldn't have water in the
engine, you'd have coolant in your water.

It's raw water cooled so all we would detect is the salt.
--

Roger Long

Roger Long wrote:
"Peggie Hall" wrote

I'll bet money that's what's happened. All you have to do to confirm
it is check the water level in your tank.

The tank was bone dry.

My money is still on the pump diaphragm. If you have a leak, the water
has to be somewhere. You wouldn't be the first person to think there was
more in the tank than you thought and ran it dry.

You said you woke up the sound of the fresh water...did you mean the
sound of water running somewhere? Or just the hammering of the water pump?

If your heat exchanger were leaking, you wouldn't have water in the
engine, you'd have coolant in your water.

It's raw water cooled so all we would detect is the salt.

Ok, SALT in your fresh water then.

--
Peggie
----------
Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://shop.sailboatowners.com/books...ku=90&cat=1304

refill you tank and use either a pool dye (best) or food coloring... I
bet you find the bilge water to have changed color. Then you just need
to find the evaporated color stain and is should lead you to the leak.

I would refill it once more and try it without the dye first... that
will confirm if Peggy's theory is correct without staining your boat...



Peggie Hall wrote:

Roger Long wrote:

"Peggie Hall" wrote

I'll bet money that's what's happened. All you have to do to confirm
it is check the water level in your tank.


The tank was bone dry.


My money is still on the pump diaphragm. If you have a leak, the water
has to be somewhere. You wouldn't be the first person to think there was
more in the tank than you thought and ran it dry.

You said you woke up the sound of the fresh water...did you mean the
sound of water running somewhere? Or just the hammering of the water pump?

If your heat exchanger were leaking, you wouldn't have water in the
engine, you'd have coolant in your water.


It's raw water cooled so all we would detect is the salt.


Ok, SALT in your fresh water then.

I found the leak. Very small and didn't cause the problem on it's
own. It did however, cause the water tank to draw down faster than I
expected. It must have been just on the verge of sucking air when I
when I went to sleep. Now I know where that little wet trickle I
thought was collected condensation was coming from.

Next on my to do list, a way to check the fresh water tank level more
easily.

The pump is dry as a bone around the diaphragm, even after pumping
enough to fill the holding tank 3/4 full with fresh water to flush it.
The sink drain "T" into the head intake line works great although it
means a lot of head pumping.

The leak is in a metal to metal joint at the cold water inlet to the
heater. The drip runs down the hose to a low spot so it isn't easy to
spot.

--

Roger Long

Roger Long wrote:
I found the leak.

Shot my theory in the tail.

Very small and didn't cause the problem on it's
own.

Or did it...? Two problems, maybe?

The pump is dry as a bone around the diaphragm...

A failing/failed diaphragm wouldn't cause the pump to leak...it creates
an air leak in the pump that causes the pressure to drop, which turns on
the pump. As the tear in the diaphragm gets bigger, the pressure drops
more often and lower, causing the pump to cycle more frequently and
longer...till finally the pump can no longer prime.

even after pumping
enough to fill the holding tank 3/4 full with fresh water to flush it.

???...holding tank or water tank?

The sink drain "T" into the head intake line works great although it
means a lot of head pumping.

Most likely because the toilet is pulling air through the sink that's
preventing from priming. Put a plug in the sink when flushing with sea
water...when flushing with water from the the sink, the sink needs to be
at least half full. Just running water down the sink drain won't work
'cuz the toilet will pull more air than water.

--
Peggie
----------
Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://shop.sailboatowners.com/books...ku=90&cat=1304

"Peggie Hall" wrote


A failing/failed diaphragm wouldn't cause the pump to leak...it
creates an air leak in the pump ....

Ah, light dawns! It's harder to make things vacuum tight than pressure
tight and much, much, harder than watertight. Developing porosity in
the rubber would do exactly what you describe.

The sink drain "T" into the head intake line works great although
it means a lot of head pumping.

Most likely because the toilet is pulling air through the sink
that's preventing from priming. Put a plug in the sink when flushing
with sea water...when flushing with water from the sink, the sink
needs to be at least half full. Just running water down the sink
drain won't work 'cuz the toilet will pull more air than water.

No, it works perfectly in normal head mode. There is a valve in the
line from the sink to the head intake line.

What I meant by lots of head pumping was filling a 13 gallon holding
tank by pumping the head. I really shouldn't have posted that point
because it only applies to our very funky marina where there is no
water hose bib within reach of the pump out station. I tried filling
the holding tank by pumping fresh water through the system to avoid
motoring back to the dock to fill with the hose through the deck pump
out the way any normal person would. Now that I've done that once,
motoring back and redocking doesn't seem like as much work as it did
before

--

Roger Long

Although, if the pump diaphragm is starting to leak air on the back
stroke, wouldn't air bubbles or froth start to show up in the water
stream? I haven't seen any yet.

--

Roger Long

Roger Long wrote:
Although, if the pump diaphragm is starting to leak air on the back
stroke, wouldn't air bubbles or froth start to show up in the water
stream? I haven't seen any yet.

Nope...and you won't. 'Cuz it's not PULLING any air into the line, it's
just a slight air leak that breaks the prime.



--
Peggie
----------
Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://shop.sailboatowners.com/books...ku=90&cat=1304

Roger Long wrote:
The sink drain "T" into the head intake line works great although
it means a lot of head pumping.

What I meant by lots of head pumping was filling a 13 gallon holding
tank by pumping the head.

You--and most other boat owners too--need to learn to use the "dry" mode
to do more than pump the last of the water out of the bowl. Few people
realize that any manual toilet that's working anywhere near factory
specs can move bowl contents up to 6 linear feet (further if you get
some help from gravity, at least 4' vertically, in the dry mode. You can
cut your flush water by at least 50%, doubling the number of flushes
your tank can hold if you'll do this:

Pump only 2-3x in the wet mode to wet the bowl ahead of use...or add 2-3
cupfuls from the sink ahead of solids. Switch to dry. After use, pump
enough times in the dry mode to move the bowl contents to the
tank...then switch to wet only long enough to rinse the bowl...and back
to dry to push the rinse water through to the tank.

--
Peggie
----------
Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://shop.sailboatowners.com/books...ku=90&cat=1304

"Peggie Hall" wrote tank by pumping the head.

You--and most other boat owners too--need to learn to use the "dry"
mode

It does work and I use a variation of this method. The variation is
only because our Groco, at least, requires more wet strokes to move
paper to the bottom As soon as stuff is out of sight, I switch to
dry.

At the end of any weekend trip or day sail with lots of guests, I do a
long wet flush from empty to be sure the line is clear.

In view of the difficulty most guests have with the regular method,
even with printed instructions, I think I'll just put up with more
frequent trips to the pump out instead of trying to add another lever
sequence.

BTW tightening up that hose clamp has brought the water off pump
cycling of my fresh water pressure set down to only about once every
2 -3 hours. I can't fix the last little drip until I move the pump so
I can get at a metal joint on the tank that is weeping slightly but
it's quite livable. I'll do that when I install the accumulator tank
I bought yesterday.

--

Roger Long