Peggy,
I thought you might like this info from my post on the Catalina 34 message board. Your comments will be appreciated.
I had been having intermittant problems with flushing the head. When trying to pump the handle, you would get tremendous resistance as if there was a blockage and you could not force it down. A dockmate recommended that I just put more pressure on it and try to force it to clear the blockage. I tried this and it actually started working and was pumping and flushing just fine. This happened twice and I was able to clear it by forcing it.........until last weekend. It wound not budge at all on the down stroke and so the adventure begins. I took apart the pump assembly to check the joker valve and the flapper gasket at the bottom. The 0 ring was obviously good with all the pressure it was creating. So now cones the hoses. First of all I was expecting to get a blast of nasty stuff when opening up the hose connections but just the normal residual came out which was bad enough. We checked the short piece between the head and the Y valve and it had some build up but was not blocked. Next the longer length between the Y valve and the holding tank. First of all I had never used the Y valve and it was frozen solid, wouldn't budge. We opened up the hose connections and found our problem.I was expecting to find a paper or cloth plug but what we found was a solid build up of salt in the hose to the point that when we took out the hose and tried to pour water in the top, none came out the bottom. Also I took apart the Y valve and it to was plugged solid.
The attached picture will give you an idea of the blockage. Has anyone run into this solid of a blockage?
I'm pretty sure this was the original hose from the factory, so we're talking about 21 years of build up.
The pictures show a partial opening but the total blockage was at the low point in the system, which was where it goes under the nav station and it was solid. I'm surprised we were able to use it thus far!
The good side is that we now have the new white sanitation hoses that should remove any smell(although we never had a major smell problem) and the head flushes just fine.
I also had to apologise to the ladies on board for accusing them of flushing unmentionables down the head
Live and learn
I thought you might like this info from my post on the Catalina 34 message board. Your comments will be appreciated.
I had been having intermittant problems with flushing the head. When trying to pump the handle, you would get tremendous resistance as if there was a blockage and you could not force it down. A dockmate recommended that I just put more pressure on it and try to force it to clear the blockage. I tried this and it actually started working and was pumping and flushing just fine. This happened twice and I was able to clear it by forcing it.........until last weekend. It wound not budge at all on the down stroke and so the adventure begins. I took apart the pump assembly to check the joker valve and the flapper gasket at the bottom. The 0 ring was obviously good with all the pressure it was creating. So now cones the hoses. First of all I was expecting to get a blast of nasty stuff when opening up the hose connections but just the normal residual came out which was bad enough. We checked the short piece between the head and the Y valve and it had some build up but was not blocked. Next the longer length between the Y valve and the holding tank. First of all I had never used the Y valve and it was frozen solid, wouldn't budge. We opened up the hose connections and found our problem.I was expecting to find a paper or cloth plug but what we found was a solid build up of salt in the hose to the point that when we took out the hose and tried to pour water in the top, none came out the bottom. Also I took apart the Y valve and it to was plugged solid.
The attached picture will give you an idea of the blockage. Has anyone run into this solid of a blockage?
I'm pretty sure this was the original hose from the factory, so we're talking about 21 years of build up.
The pictures show a partial opening but the total blockage was at the low point in the system, which was where it goes under the nav station and it was solid. I'm surprised we were able to use it thus far!
The good side is that we now have the new white sanitation hoses that should remove any smell(although we never had a major smell problem) and the head flushes just fine.
I also had to apologise to the ladies on board for accusing them of flushing unmentionables down the head
Live and learn
He's a very frequent and helpful contributor. He's a nice guy and even took our C34 treasurer from Chicago out for a ride when he was visiting San Diego. Of course, the 12 foot seas at the entrance to Mission Bay had something to say about that. But it sure turned into a good story!