Having succesfully trailered my new old boat home from LA about a month ago I now find myself in the process of finding things more fun to work on than sanding off 30 years of bottom paint. One such task is removing, inspecting, and replacing thru hulls and seacocks.
There is currently no inboard strainer on the raw water intake system which cools my ysm8. I plan to install an inboard strainer to remedy this. Currently the thru hull for the intake is in the bilge near the front and there is only 3 1/2" of clearance from hull to the under side of the cabin sole. Because of this, the current assembly utilizes an elbow before the ball valve and leaves little to no room for an inboard strainer close to the seacock. I dont love anything about this. Its hard to work on and assemble the various fittings in this location and if either joint at the elbow begins to leak there are very few options besides haul out to fix as the elbow is before the ball valve.
As I see it I have a couple options...
1) Clean up and re-install the thru-hull, elbow, and seacock assembly the way I found it and then place an inboard strainer in the engine bay just before the raw water pump.
2) I have removed the toilet. This means I have the toilet flush intake thru hull available for other uses and it is situated in a much more favorable location where it is easier to work on and wouldn't require any fittings between the thru hull and ball valve or proper seacock. If your familiar with the Y25 you know that this thru hull is located slightly higher than the current raw water intake. It isnt that much higher though and its very centered on the boat lengthwise so I seriously doubt I would have trouble with it coming out of the water while motoring.
3) If I choose to re-engineer the system do I go so far as to glass over the original raw water intake so that I don't have to worry about having a thru hull with fittings before the valve?
What would you do? particularly interested to hear from other Yamaha 25 owners who may have pondered/ tackled these same concerns.
There is currently no inboard strainer on the raw water intake system which cools my ysm8. I plan to install an inboard strainer to remedy this. Currently the thru hull for the intake is in the bilge near the front and there is only 3 1/2" of clearance from hull to the under side of the cabin sole. Because of this, the current assembly utilizes an elbow before the ball valve and leaves little to no room for an inboard strainer close to the seacock. I dont love anything about this. Its hard to work on and assemble the various fittings in this location and if either joint at the elbow begins to leak there are very few options besides haul out to fix as the elbow is before the ball valve.
As I see it I have a couple options...
1) Clean up and re-install the thru-hull, elbow, and seacock assembly the way I found it and then place an inboard strainer in the engine bay just before the raw water pump.
2) I have removed the toilet. This means I have the toilet flush intake thru hull available for other uses and it is situated in a much more favorable location where it is easier to work on and wouldn't require any fittings between the thru hull and ball valve or proper seacock. If your familiar with the Y25 you know that this thru hull is located slightly higher than the current raw water intake. It isnt that much higher though and its very centered on the boat lengthwise so I seriously doubt I would have trouble with it coming out of the water while motoring.
3) If I choose to re-engineer the system do I go so far as to glass over the original raw water intake so that I don't have to worry about having a thru hull with fittings before the valve?
What would you do? particularly interested to hear from other Yamaha 25 owners who may have pondered/ tackled these same concerns.