A Tale of Two Pumps ................

Jan 4, 2006
6,444
Hunter 310 West Vancouver, B.C.
Doctorbill recently brought up a subject which I swore I would not get into as I'm still in therapy trying to heal the mental scars.







Recently had my Jabsco macerator develop a leak at the gasket. Damned thing was replaced four years ago. This brings to mind a post dealing with EXACTLY the same thing which I had always meant to check .......... but didn't. Lucky number 13 stud.







While removing the macerator, I found one of the long studs (surprise - part #13 in the drawing) laying in the compartment below it. My first thought was that it'd failed from corrosion. Now, I've suffered through enough painful memories in a career I'd rather forget to know this failure was mechanical in nature and not corrosive. Bloody crap .







Off to WM, put my hands over my head, and a guy with a mask takes my wallet. He then gives me a replacement Jabsco pump ($224.99) and my empty wallet. I leave penniless but unhurt.

Get to the boat and had to rotate the new pump oulet 180 degrees to fit the application. Undid the studs (part #13) one, two, and three. The fourth stud starts to come out and then suddenly releases. Interesting. The stud snapped as a result of simply removing it. New Jabsco pump, same assembler, four years later, still over torquing the lucky #13 studs . Still can't afford to buy a torque wrench.








Notice that the Jabsco drawing lists only two studs (part #13)when there are actually four.







Back to WM, put my hands up, same guy with the mask takes my wallet and we talk. I say "#*$&*$^+@!" he says Jabsco macerators are crap. He recommends a Johnson pump at $184.99 or a West Marine pump at $174.99. The WM pump is made by Johnson. I take the WM pump and leave, lucky to get away with the clothes on my back..

Had to rotate the outlet 180 deg. on the Johnson macerator so took off the cutter and rotated the discharge. Nice looking components on this one, SS studs, nice bronze cutter. Looks good except for maybe one thing .............. which way does the shaft rotate ? ? ? The cutter has a clockwise thread and no lock nut on the shaft. Better check the rotation. Touched the leads to the battery and the motor leaps into the air and tries to smack me. Starting torque up the wazoo ............ and it's clockwise rotation. Not good :doh:.







Great, with the crazy torque, the inertia of the cutter, and the resistance of the sewage, bound to lose the cutter in very short order. And, it'll drop down through the suction head, never to be found in the suction sewage pipe. No mention in the assembly instructions about losing the cutter so slap on the blue Loctite and hope for the best.

The pump goes in and I check myself into a treatment centre from where this was written.
 
Mar 6, 2008
1,078
Catalina 1999 C36 MKII #1787 Coyote Point Marina, CA.
I feel your pain. I went through the same experience. The reason that the bolts break is because the installer had not installed it correctly. The input side should have a 4" rubber hose to take the strain off the pump. I replaced the studs with stainless steel studs. Please notice that there 4 studs. 2 are longer than the other 2 and in your diagram they are both listed as item 3 and item 13 each pair with a different part number. In order to keep it from leaking there must be a 3-way valve placed between the through hull valve and the pump out hose. I added that as well. Now if the pumps starts to leak you can close the valve and stop the leak. The later model number has 4 cutting blades while the old one has 2 blades. The exit hose must not be larger than 1" - USCG regulation. If you need images PM me.
 
Jan 4, 2006
6,444
Hunter 310 West Vancouver, B.C.
A Tale of Two Pumps ................

I replaced the studs with stainless steel studs.
I thought long and hard about replacing all of the brass studs in the Jabsco with SS but was just too ticked off to give them the benefit of a sale.
 
Jan 4, 2006
6,444
Hunter 310 West Vancouver, B.C.
;)

I THINK something got left out here!

;)
Trying to insert the pics with grandkids and a couple of fur bearing animals crawling all over me didn't make it easy. Erased everything when it didn't work and edited.
 
Oct 2, 2008
3,807
Pearson/ 530 Strafford, NH
Ralph,
I understand the issue. Most of the torque problems I have are usually too much rather than not enough. (Why do they make breaker bars if you can't use them?)
We switched our heads to Marine Elegance two years ago and are happy with the results having just returned from eight months aboard. Price-wise the change was close to what you've already paid and much simpler to use. I'd try stainless, but then maybe there was a reason for bronze. Good luck.

All U Get