I have an Oday 25, 1980 and my bow light bulb is shot. I'm thinking about climbing a ladder to replace it without taking the mast down. Does anyone know the specific bulb that is used. I recall that it is a straight bulb with two metal ends, but at the auto parts store there are several sizes for this type of bulb. I want to avoid going up the ladder twice.
Bow Light Bulb
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On my O'Day 23 panel, the steaming light is labeled "bow light". Can't remember the bulb, though. It's the same one used in a lot of motorcycle directional signals, if I remember correctly.
I would put a ladder up against the mast and climb up to the steaming light. I climbed my mast a couple of years ago to get at my spreaders and as I climbed I held on to the mast between the ladder rungs. when I got to where I could work on the spreader I tied the top rung of the ladder to the mast with a short sling. You really don't know if the bulb is blown or if one of the conductors that feed that light is broken until you remove the light. You could also have a bad connection or even a poor contact on the metal of the bulb itself. This is where a Dremel Tool comes in handy. In most cases the bulbs are OK. The metal just becomes a little corroded. The plug and receptacle is another place to look for problems of this nature. A volt/ohm meter is a must for checking this out. Hopefully the problem is just a little corrosion that is causing a poor contact. If you can clean it up you'll be back in business. The bulb can be checked with an Ohms meter for continuity along with the feed wire when you isolate it from the power source.
What you describe is what I intend to do. Before I raised my mast this spring, I checked the wiring in the mast, the contacts, and cleaned the bulb and connections, it worked for about 4 weeks. Therefore, since I did not buy a new bulb at that time, I believe it is the bulb. I just hate the thought of getting up there with the wrong bulb or having to do it twice, once to get the old bulb out and again to reinstall the new one.
The steaming light that I removed from my mast a couple of years ago looks like a Perko and it takes a #1416 bulb which is an old type bulb for a single socket. I don't think it's the same light used on the O'Day 25. The only guy I know who may know for sure is Rudy Nickerson of D&R Marine. http://www.drmarine.com/
Of course the O'Days that were built at the West Coast factory may have had different manufacturers supplying them.
The anchor light at the top of my mast is the double contact type fixture and the lens has a plastic pin inside of it that has to be lined up to press against the top contact for the light to work. Good luck with that. Sorry I couldn't be of any help to you.
Joe
Does it look like this? This what I have on mine.
Bow Light (round): K-11019
http://rigrite.com/Spars/Kenyon_Spars/3550-Mast.html
Rich
Bow Light (round): K-11019
http://rigrite.com/Spars/Kenyon_Spars/3550-Mast.html
Rich
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I pulled the fixture off last Spring because it was not working when I bought the boat. The bulb was not burned up, so I wanted to check the connections and examine the whole assembly. I found that the seat for the bulb was pretty mangled and over time it had become very stiff, which meant it wouldn't hold the bulb in place well enough to stay in contact with the socket terminals. After an hour or so, I got it to the point where the light functioned. The big problem was getting the fixture back on the mast so that it would seal correctly- there was no gasket with mine (not sure if they came with one). Sure enough, after a couple good rains, the light was full of water and within a couple more weeks, it quit working altogether.
If I had an inclination to fix it, I would consider replacing the entire fixture, upgrading to one with a deck light, too.
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