caralina 27 bilge pump

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Bob Middleton

I have a manual bilge pump on my 1987 Catalina and want to install an electric as back up. There is a 1.5" hose from the bilge strainer that goes to the manual pump, and there is no room in the rear of the bilge to add another, separate hose. In October (this forum) it was mentioned that the pumps could be connected in "series". Can anyone elaborate on how this is done? Can you pump through the manual pump? How do you connect the electric pump and manual pump strainer together in the bilge? Thanks, Bob
 
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Rodney Kidd

Series Connection

Bob, My C-38 came connected with the manual and electric bilge pumps connected in series. In effect, the electric bilge pump becomes the manual bilge pump's "strainer". Take off the manual pumps strainer and connect the hose to a suitable electric pump. Thats all there is to it. A caveat though - the boat was dinged by the surveyor for the series hookup when I bought the boat. Separate hoses are the way to go if possible. Rodney Kidd C-42, #567 Sashay
 
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Hans Mosberg

Check that hose!

I have a 1985 C27 with the "in-series" hookup as stated in the previous post. When I bought her last year, I found that often when the electrical pump came on, it would run for quite a while without actually pumping any water (which started splashing outboard after a minute or so). Puzzled by this I de-assembled, re-assembled many times to the point that I was ready to put a new pump in. Eventually I discovered that the original rubber hose had collapsed under its own (vacuum) weight in the rising part aft in the engine compartment - very hard to see! (The manual pump would have been affected the same way). I replaced the rubber hose by light-weight corrugated plastic hose (a reinforced vinyl would be better but much more expensive) and had no troubles since. One more word of caution: since the bilge really doesn't have much room, chances are that your pump/switch connectors will be exposed to (salt) water. So do what you can to protect them, e.g. heat-shrink "water-tight" connectors and liquid tape. Good luck, Hans
 
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Bob Middleton

followup to Rodney Kidd

Rodney, Just to be sure..... You mean to tell me that the electric pump and manual pump in the series connection act as open pipe to each other. In other words, the electric pump pumps through the manual pump, and the manual pump sucks through the electric pump/strainer. I can't imagine this to be true, but it may be. Strange comment on your survey.... Some people said the Catalina standard at one time was the series connection. Thanks, Bob
 
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Randy

Parallel pumps

I've got both the manual and electric pumps on my 27, but they're connected in a parallel setup: the electric pump is connected to the (only) hose, which is led to a Y valve in the stern locker. Normally, the y valve allows the electric pump to discharge overboard. If the electric pump fails, operating the y valve allows the manual pump to draw water through the electric pump's intake strainer, and pump it through a "T" fitting just inside the through-hull. (One through-hull serves both the electric and manual pumps.) The advantage to this over the series connection is that my electric pump doesn't have to pump through the manual pump--the discharge is routed overboard, bypassing the manual pump. The downside to this setup is that only one pump is useful at a time. (The manual pump serves purely as a back up to the electric pump.) From a practical standpoint, that's how I use the system anyway. I've investigated adding a second intake hose dedicated to the manual pump, so both pumps could be used at the same time, but there is so little room to run the hose in the bilge that I haven't done it yet. Randy
 
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