It doesn't take much to stop a bilge pump.

[Roger Long]

My boat has a manual pump that the helmsman can work while desperately steering towards that speck of land that doesn’t seem to get any closer as the water rises. Normally, I use it to strip the bilge sump down below the level of the electric pump.

I disconnected a hose and drained some anti freeze out of the water tank today for access to my transducer patch. The hand pump wouldn’t work. I took the whole system apart which is a bit of a chore since the pump standoffs also serve as the mount for my autopilot.

Here is the cause:

A little sliver of plywood stuck in the output flapper valve preventing it from sealing. It doesn’t take much. Good to use a manual pump like this for some routine task such as bilge stripping so you don’t discover a problem like this when your life might depend on the pump.

 

[sailingdog]

Having an intake strainer or strum box helps with that... but that's a really tiny piece of debris to screw up a diaphragm pump.

 

[Roger Long]

Having an intake strainer or strum box helps with that... but that's a really tiny piece of debris to screw up a diaphragm pump.

I think that would have gone right through most strainers. Once a pump diaphram pump is moving water, it will usually flush stuff like this though. The famous ad of the Edson pump passing a pair of blue jeans comes to mind. When the obstruction stops in just the right place and the hose drains so the pump can't prime, it's going to have to be disassembled.

 

[sailingdog]

True, very true... just bad luck in that particular case.

I think that would have gone right through most strainers. Once a pump diaphram pump is moving water, it will usually flush stuff like this though. The famous ad of the Edson pump passing a pair of blue jeans comes to mind. When the obstruction stops in just the right place and the hose drains so the pump can't prime, it's going to have to be disassembled.

 

[Ross]

I use the knitted plastic pot scrubbers for bilge pick-up screens they trap the small debris in the many layers of mesh.

 

[Skipper]

Looking at the picture, at first I thought it was the coin that was the culprit. If it had been what interupted the pump, then you could say that it stopped on a dime.

 

[Seattle Scott]

that was worth a chuckle

then you could say that it stopped on a dime.

 

[Ross]

Re: that was worth a chuckle

I have taken garbage disposals apart that have stopped on a penny.

 

[Nik]

Why....

Are you putting pennies in your disposers Ross?

 

[Ross]

Are you putting pennies in your disposers Ross?

never in mine but I have pried coin, spoons, small screws, the wire that closes a potato sack and cotton dish rags out of disposals for other people. The usual charge is about 75 bucks.