380 Hot Water Heater with "the drip"

[Jay Meyer]

I have a 2001 380 with a leak in the hot water heater.
So how does one replace the unit. It is located forward in the starboard salon settee. Any help before I learn as I go would be accepted gratefully!
I do have some rubber plugs for the heat exchanger in/out lines so I can plug them, but I have no experience working with the "plastic" water supply lines. Can I simply disconnect and reconnect to new unit? Can I buy a heater with all the plumbing in the same locations? (See how I said that with great hope and little confidence)

Thanks for any help Guys and Gals!

 

[Bob 04 H260]

We just replaced our hot water tank too. I bought the same one from Defender.com. Easy way to just plug and play, it all fits.

The 15 mm Whale fitting can be released by just pushing in the ring in the front of the fitting and pulling the pipe out. I find they tend to leak. I bought new Whale fittings for the tank, a few feet of blue and red pipe and a few extra fittings for future use. I cut the old pipes back about a foot and added new pipe onto that right through to the tank.

The heat exchanger from your engine will have engine coolant in it. That needs to be drained, the hoses transferred to the new tank and the engine refilled with coolant. The engine will also probably need to be burped to get any air out of the lines.

good luck, Bob

 

[Calif. Ted]

Can I buy a heater with all the plumbing in the same locations?

Probably, I just replaced a 6 gallon Seaward with (front and back) connections, that's heat exchanger connections to the rear and freshwater to the front(side with electrical). The other configuration readily available had all connections on the front.
BTW the same heater is available with 3 different covers, galvanized is cheapest, then stainless, then powder coated white. These are just the covers, not the tanks, so the more expensive covers are just for appearances, on a part that's not visible

 

[charliegrau]

I replaced mine this year. Used a SEWARD with the freshwater connections in the front, and the coolant connecctions in the back. It is important to get the same configuration you already have so your existing hoses will reach. The freshwater attachment just screwed on and off. I used putty on the threads during reassembly. Coolant hoses used clamps. The biggest challenge for me was just getting the old one out and the new one in through the opening in the settee. There is a plywood top that attaches to the molded fiberglass settee base. I had to cut that so I could just remove the section over the water heater. I added a couple of additional fasteners during reassembly and put a couple of strips of wood on the underside to tie the piece I removed back to the piece I left in place.

 

[Jay Meyer]

Thanks all!
Found same model on Defender site with galvanized skin. Should be a drop in replacement. Thanks for all the tips on plugging lines and performing the swap out. I will post pictures of me standing on my head to preform the "upgrade".

 

[Capt jgw]

I'm not familiar with your boat model, but on some the large items like the water heater are put in before the deck is installed. Those can be very difficult to remove. I changed one out on a Columbia 8.7, and had to disassemble the old one to get it out. Didn't want to void the warranty on the new one so I had to cut the cockpit locker coaming back a bit to get out in. The water connections are the easy part.