While checking my engine yesterday, a mechanic mentioned that all the "single pipe" thru-hull fittings on my 1980 Catalina 30 will not pass a survey next year because they probably are not safe after all these years and need to be replaced with more modern ones. Has anyone had a similar comment made about the older models? If this is true, how do you replace the fittings with newer ones when the boat is in a cradle?
- Status
- Not open for further replies.
C
Chris Gonzales
Archives
I replaced my ball valves on the existing pipes. The glassed in pipes we strong and firm so I decided to keep them rather than remove them and install real thru-hull valves since I had already put the boat in the water after a 2 week haul out. My surveyor did not mention them in his survey and did not even notice that one of them (the sink drain under the galley counter) was totally rusted out and stuck open. I replaced them and got my survey money back. I had to learn a TON about our vintage boat on my own with the help of many here. Check out the link below from the archives. Chris '79 C30 #1408 Cg2 PS. I did the valve replacement with the boat in the water. As suggested I installed a good sized teak door to make for easy access to the sink drain valve for replacement and future use.
I replaced my ball valves on the existing pipes. The glassed in pipes we strong and firm so I decided to keep them rather than remove them and install real thru-hull valves since I had already put the boat in the water after a 2 week haul out. My surveyor did not mention them in his survey and did not even notice that one of them (the sink drain under the galley counter) was totally rusted out and stuck open. I replaced them and got my survey money back. I had to learn a TON about our vintage boat on my own with the help of many here. Check out the link below from the archives. Chris '79 C30 #1408 Cg2 PS. I did the valve replacement with the boat in the water. As suggested I installed a good sized teak door to make for easy access to the sink drain valve for replacement and future use.
R
Rob R
Mine passed
With the orginal gave valves. The surveyor (accredited) mentioned the gatevalves, and that they should be replaced. He did note that it was not an urgent issue as long as they were functional, and that frequent turning of the valves would keep them operational a bit longer. I plan to replace them, but probably not this year. Best Regards, Rob
With the orginal gave valves. The surveyor (accredited) mentioned the gatevalves, and that they should be replaced. He did note that it was not an urgent issue as long as they were functional, and that frequent turning of the valves would keep them operational a bit longer. I plan to replace them, but probably not this year. Best Regards, Rob
G
gARRY
Thru Hulls
I have posted this before but I have cleaned it up some. You should replace your old "volcano" thru hulls and you should do it right with true seacocks and thru hulls, preferable bronze. If you decide to replace them, here's how I did it. THRU HULLS AND SEA COCKS Here's what you need to do. You need to have the boat hauled. You need to get the following tools: a medium sized pipe wrench (10-12 inch) and a hammer for loosening the old gate valves. A big pipe wrench won't be useful in the close quarters you'll be working in. Since you won't have the leverage of a big wrench you may need the persuasion of the hammer. An electric hand held grinder (I bought a Makita) to grind down the old volcano (and saw off the old pipe inside). A carbide hole saw for each of the thru hull sizes you will replace (cutting fiberglass will dull a steel hole saw like lightening). The right sizes are not easy to find, Home depot had lots of 1 1/4" carbide saws but no 1 1/8" ones. I got mine from MSC Industrial Direct Co. <http://www.mscdirect.com/MSCCatLookup2.process?MSCProdID=03587821> A router with a circle cutting attachment will be very helpful. A plunge router would be even better but not essential. You will also need a regular 3/8" drill motor to drive the hole saw. Plenty of 4200 (not 5200 which will not allow disassembly when needed). Both penetrating and standard epoxy resin (West Marine has small repair-size packages). A roll or two of 1/2" teflon thread sealing tape. A bottle of penetrating oil will be invaluable as the old threads have no teflon tape in them and are very tight and/or corroded. For backing blocks get about two feet of 2" x 4" teak. Access to a 10" table saw will make shaping the mounting blocks a lot easier. Measure twice, cut once. You need to have a good look at what you are going to replace. There are four valves on TASHTEGO, a Catalina 27: A large one for the head pump-out to sea, a smaller one for the head sea water intake, another of the same size for the sink/ice box drain and the raw water supply to the engine. My pump-out turned out to be 1 1/4". At first I thought it was 1 1/2" and planned accordingly but fortunately I measured before I bought the supplies. I didn't measure the raw water intake for the engine and it turned out to be 1/2" (I think) but by the time I had figured that out I had already sawed off the valve. I replaced it with a 3/4" scoop thru hull. By the way the pipe sizes are inside diameter (ID) measurements, not the outside. That's why the 3/4" thru hull requires a 1 1/8" hole. Once you are sure what you need, you should buy a thru hull and seacock of the proper size for each of the valves and volcanoes you intend to replace. In addition, you will need a tailpiece of the proper size for each seacock. The male pipe thread on one end of the hose barb must match the female pipe thread on top of the seacock and the hose barb on the other end must match the hose you will attach to it. For my head out-to-sea I bought a 1 1/4" pipe (NPT)to 1 1/2" hose tail piece from West Marine. Also get enough high quality stainless steel hose clamps to double clamp all connections. Here's how to do it. Remove the hose from the valve saving the hose clamps if they are still in good shape. Use the pipe wrench (and probably the hammer) to unscrew the valve. It helps to disassemble the valve down to just the body by removing the handle and unscrewing the mechanism that the stem passes through and the tailpiece if any. You might get lucky. When I started to turn the 3/4" head intake valve the pipe turned in the volcano so I just pulled it out (shows how safe they are though). When I tried the sink/ice box pipe it refused to budge so I cut it off with the grinder along with most of the volcano. If there is already a thru hull in place you have to decide whether or not to use it. TASHTEGO had a 1 1/4" thru hull for the head pump-out hose but, while removing the gate valve, the thru hull turned in the hull and broke the seal. Working in the little compartment forward of the head was brutal and the air was blue with bad language and penetrating oil fumes. I decided to remove the thru hull and replace it. This was a difficult chore as getting the pipe wrench on the nut was very difficult and the thru hull kept turning in the hole. Since I was doing the job alone I made a wrench to fit down through the thru hull (I had the valve body off by now)and engage the knobs on the inside near the other end. It was an old 3/8" drive socket. I don't remember the size but it just fit into the ID of the thru hull. I ground notches into opposite sides of the socket with the grinder to fit over the knobs. If you look into your thru hull you'll see these knobs on the ID. With all of the hardware out I proceeded to grind down the volcanos with the Makita grinder. Don't go crazy and grind holes in the hull, just get it fairly flat. Next, use the carbide edge hole saw to cut the appropriate size hole drilling from the outside in. A 1 1/8" Remgrit hole saw is just right for 3/4" thru hulls for the head inlet and ice box/sink. I couldn't get the valve body off the raw water inlet thru hull/scoop strainer so I replaced it with a new 3/4" one (the old one was 1/2", I think). I used the existing hole for the 1 1/4" head pump-out. You will have a very difficult time starting the hole saw without something in the hole for the pilot bit to engage. I used one of the tapered plugs sold for plugging broken thru hulls, etc. Pound it in from the inside using one just big enough to project 1/2" or so on the outside then start the hole saw's pilot drill in the center of the plug and away you go. You can re-use the plug for the other holes of the same size. If you had to grind off the old volcano with the pipe inside, the hole saw will remove any remaining ring of metal when the new, larger, hole is cut. Once the new hole is cut, clean the outside surface around the hole very well, sanding down to a good solid surface and remove all of the anti fouling paint for at least 2" around the outside of the thru hull. Then mix up some penetrating epoxy and coat the raw edges of the hull in the hole. When the epoxy is set (this took some time for me i.e., overnight, as the weather was cool) slather the mushroom head with 4200 and stick it in the hole. Run inside, slather 4200 around the thru hull on the inside, start the nut on the thru hull and snug it up by hand. If you have made a wrench for the thru hull you can go on and tighten it up until it is good and tight with the pipe wrench on the nut and the internal wrench going down the inside. Otherwise you'll have to find some other way to hold the thru hull still while you tighten it up. A helper here is useful to wait outside the hull and hold the thru hull in place with whatever will jam between the lugs. Some folks advise waiting a day then giving the nut a tweak to compress the 4200. I figured this would break any adhesive seal so I went directly to full tight. No leaks yet. Now you have to mount the sea cock. You can use a plain ball valve on the thru hull but you shouldn't. The thru hull has a straight pipe thread (NPS)and the ball valve has a tapered pipe thread (NPT), not a good combination. Bite the bullet, pay the ten dollars extra (apiece) and get real flanged seacocks which have straight threads on the bottom and tapered threads on top. The thru hull is almost certainly too long for the sea cock to bottom out on the hull when screwed down all the way. You will have to make mounting pads for them (You could be really brave and throw the nut away, measure carefully and cut the thru hull off so that the seacock will screw all the way down). Make your mounting blocks by cutting off 4" x 4" squares of teak. They should be thick enough to support the base of the seacock when screwed down tight but not so thick that they only let a few threads engage. They are probably going to be around 1 1/2" thick. This is a trial and error process. When making the bases drill a small pilot hole through the center of the block. (I then cut them circular on the outside with a circle cutting attachment to my router which looked pretty but was a mistake, see below). Using the circle cutting attachment on the router and the pilot hole, Cut a circular recess in the base for the thru hull nut. Make it deep enough for the nut to be fully recessed in the cavity. If you don't do this the wooden base will sit on top of the nut and not be an effective support. Now turn the base over and use the pilot hole to cut out a hole for the threaded part of the thru hull using the same hole saw used to cut the hole in the hull. The result is a block of teak that fits over the thru hull and goes all the way down to touch the hull. Shape the bottom of the mounting block with a belt sander (or a plane) to conform to the curvature of the hull (it doesn't have to be perfect). Now screw the sea cock onto the thru hull without the mounting block and count the turns until it seats all the way on. It probably won't touch the hull. Unscrew it and try it again with the mounting block in place, counting the turns again. Cut down the mounting block until the thru hull engages almost all of its threads. You can measure the amount to remove by taking the difference between the two counts and measuring the length of that many threads on the thru hull. This is a little more (by 2 or 3 threads) than the amount you need to cut off the block. When you have the mounting block cut to the right thickness give it a coat of penetrating epoxy then a coat of regular epoxy following the instructions. You can buy small epoxy repair kits at West Marine that are just big enough to do all of the thru hulls on a Cat 27. For final assembly glue the mounting block to the hull with 4200 and screw on the sea cock with plenty of teflon tape. For security I drilled a pilot hole and used a 3/4" long stainless steel lag screw to attach the thru hull flange to the mounting block. Don't drill right through the hull when drilling the pilot hole. To do it really right you should drill through the mounting base and the hull for bronze bolts to attach the hull to the flange through the mounting base. I wasn't keen on drilling three more holes through the hull so I relied on the 4200 and the lag screw to hold things in place. If the seacock moves when you turn it you will notice it right away and well before it is likely to leak. When screwing the seacocks on remember to finish them with the handles where you can both reach and turn them. This may require a little extra effort but a seacock you can't operate is useless. Also make sure your hoses can be attached and still run without kinking. You will have to install a tail piece on each seacock with pipe threads on one end and a hose barb on the other. Use plenty of teflon tape here too. Note I had to get a tailpiece (from the West Marine Catalog) with a 1 1/4" pipe thread and a 1 1/2" hose barb to connect the head pump-out. All of the waste line hoses and head and tank fittings are 1 1/2". Attach the hoses using double hose clamps and consider replacing the old hoses at this time. You can get 90 degree tailpieces but be careful how these screw in and don't let them get in the way of the handles etc. I had to replace the "Y" valve too as I broke the old one trying to get the hoses off. It is cheaper to cut the old hoses off and save the "Y" valve as you should replace the hoses anyway (another lesson learned). Once I figured out what was what, I did the engine intake (replacing the scoop strainer thru hull) and the sink/ice box thru hull and installed the backing blocks, seacocks and tailpieces in about an hour for each (the backing blocks were pre-made and already coated). If you start on one day with the first steps and do all four up to the point where you coat the raw edges of the hole with epoxy you should be able to finish up the following day as long as you don't have too much fitting to do on the mounting blocks. I rounded my mounting blocks first then had a hard time slicing them down to the right thickness. Try leaving them square until you are sure they are the right thickness so you can cut them on edge on a table saw (cut one side all the way up to the hole in the middle then turn them over and do the other side), when they are the right thickness trim them by cutting off the corners and making them octagonal. They should look neat that way and if you have a couple of hours and a belt sander you can still make them round. I added raw water strainers of the wire screen type on the engine raw water intake (a large one) and on the head intake (a smaller one). Cheap and good protection. They are plastic and you must take care (and use plenty of teflon tape) when screwing tapered metal pipe fittings into them as you can split them by the wedging action of the tapered pipe threads. I also went a little overboard and plumbed the sink/ice box junction with another bronze ball valve and fittings. Well at least it won't leak! I expect when all is said and done I spent around $250 or maybe $300 to replace all the gate valves and volcanoes. I am left over with a Makita grinder, a 1 1/8" Remgrit hole saw in fine shape, a bunch of teak pieces of varying size and shape and a fine feeling of security about hull integrity when I shut everything up tight for a night on the hook. Now about those cockpit drains.....
I have posted this before but I have cleaned it up some. You should replace your old "volcano" thru hulls and you should do it right with true seacocks and thru hulls, preferable bronze. If you decide to replace them, here's how I did it. THRU HULLS AND SEA COCKS Here's what you need to do. You need to have the boat hauled. You need to get the following tools: a medium sized pipe wrench (10-12 inch) and a hammer for loosening the old gate valves. A big pipe wrench won't be useful in the close quarters you'll be working in. Since you won't have the leverage of a big wrench you may need the persuasion of the hammer. An electric hand held grinder (I bought a Makita) to grind down the old volcano (and saw off the old pipe inside). A carbide hole saw for each of the thru hull sizes you will replace (cutting fiberglass will dull a steel hole saw like lightening). The right sizes are not easy to find, Home depot had lots of 1 1/4" carbide saws but no 1 1/8" ones. I got mine from MSC Industrial Direct Co. <http://www.mscdirect.com/MSCCatLookup2.process?MSCProdID=03587821> A router with a circle cutting attachment will be very helpful. A plunge router would be even better but not essential. You will also need a regular 3/8" drill motor to drive the hole saw. Plenty of 4200 (not 5200 which will not allow disassembly when needed). Both penetrating and standard epoxy resin (West Marine has small repair-size packages). A roll or two of 1/2" teflon thread sealing tape. A bottle of penetrating oil will be invaluable as the old threads have no teflon tape in them and are very tight and/or corroded. For backing blocks get about two feet of 2" x 4" teak. Access to a 10" table saw will make shaping the mounting blocks a lot easier. Measure twice, cut once. You need to have a good look at what you are going to replace. There are four valves on TASHTEGO, a Catalina 27: A large one for the head pump-out to sea, a smaller one for the head sea water intake, another of the same size for the sink/ice box drain and the raw water supply to the engine. My pump-out turned out to be 1 1/4". At first I thought it was 1 1/2" and planned accordingly but fortunately I measured before I bought the supplies. I didn't measure the raw water intake for the engine and it turned out to be 1/2" (I think) but by the time I had figured that out I had already sawed off the valve. I replaced it with a 3/4" scoop thru hull. By the way the pipe sizes are inside diameter (ID) measurements, not the outside. That's why the 3/4" thru hull requires a 1 1/8" hole. Once you are sure what you need, you should buy a thru hull and seacock of the proper size for each of the valves and volcanoes you intend to replace. In addition, you will need a tailpiece of the proper size for each seacock. The male pipe thread on one end of the hose barb must match the female pipe thread on top of the seacock and the hose barb on the other end must match the hose you will attach to it. For my head out-to-sea I bought a 1 1/4" pipe (NPT)to 1 1/2" hose tail piece from West Marine. Also get enough high quality stainless steel hose clamps to double clamp all connections. Here's how to do it. Remove the hose from the valve saving the hose clamps if they are still in good shape. Use the pipe wrench (and probably the hammer) to unscrew the valve. It helps to disassemble the valve down to just the body by removing the handle and unscrewing the mechanism that the stem passes through and the tailpiece if any. You might get lucky. When I started to turn the 3/4" head intake valve the pipe turned in the volcano so I just pulled it out (shows how safe they are though). When I tried the sink/ice box pipe it refused to budge so I cut it off with the grinder along with most of the volcano. If there is already a thru hull in place you have to decide whether or not to use it. TASHTEGO had a 1 1/4" thru hull for the head pump-out hose but, while removing the gate valve, the thru hull turned in the hull and broke the seal. Working in the little compartment forward of the head was brutal and the air was blue with bad language and penetrating oil fumes. I decided to remove the thru hull and replace it. This was a difficult chore as getting the pipe wrench on the nut was very difficult and the thru hull kept turning in the hole. Since I was doing the job alone I made a wrench to fit down through the thru hull (I had the valve body off by now)and engage the knobs on the inside near the other end. It was an old 3/8" drive socket. I don't remember the size but it just fit into the ID of the thru hull. I ground notches into opposite sides of the socket with the grinder to fit over the knobs. If you look into your thru hull you'll see these knobs on the ID. With all of the hardware out I proceeded to grind down the volcanos with the Makita grinder. Don't go crazy and grind holes in the hull, just get it fairly flat. Next, use the carbide edge hole saw to cut the appropriate size hole drilling from the outside in. A 1 1/8" Remgrit hole saw is just right for 3/4" thru hulls for the head inlet and ice box/sink. I couldn't get the valve body off the raw water inlet thru hull/scoop strainer so I replaced it with a new 3/4" one (the old one was 1/2", I think). I used the existing hole for the 1 1/4" head pump-out. You will have a very difficult time starting the hole saw without something in the hole for the pilot bit to engage. I used one of the tapered plugs sold for plugging broken thru hulls, etc. Pound it in from the inside using one just big enough to project 1/2" or so on the outside then start the hole saw's pilot drill in the center of the plug and away you go. You can re-use the plug for the other holes of the same size. If you had to grind off the old volcano with the pipe inside, the hole saw will remove any remaining ring of metal when the new, larger, hole is cut. Once the new hole is cut, clean the outside surface around the hole very well, sanding down to a good solid surface and remove all of the anti fouling paint for at least 2" around the outside of the thru hull. Then mix up some penetrating epoxy and coat the raw edges of the hull in the hole. When the epoxy is set (this took some time for me i.e., overnight, as the weather was cool) slather the mushroom head with 4200 and stick it in the hole. Run inside, slather 4200 around the thru hull on the inside, start the nut on the thru hull and snug it up by hand. If you have made a wrench for the thru hull you can go on and tighten it up until it is good and tight with the pipe wrench on the nut and the internal wrench going down the inside. Otherwise you'll have to find some other way to hold the thru hull still while you tighten it up. A helper here is useful to wait outside the hull and hold the thru hull in place with whatever will jam between the lugs. Some folks advise waiting a day then giving the nut a tweak to compress the 4200. I figured this would break any adhesive seal so I went directly to full tight. No leaks yet. Now you have to mount the sea cock. You can use a plain ball valve on the thru hull but you shouldn't. The thru hull has a straight pipe thread (NPS)and the ball valve has a tapered pipe thread (NPT), not a good combination. Bite the bullet, pay the ten dollars extra (apiece) and get real flanged seacocks which have straight threads on the bottom and tapered threads on top. The thru hull is almost certainly too long for the sea cock to bottom out on the hull when screwed down all the way. You will have to make mounting pads for them (You could be really brave and throw the nut away, measure carefully and cut the thru hull off so that the seacock will screw all the way down). Make your mounting blocks by cutting off 4" x 4" squares of teak. They should be thick enough to support the base of the seacock when screwed down tight but not so thick that they only let a few threads engage. They are probably going to be around 1 1/2" thick. This is a trial and error process. When making the bases drill a small pilot hole through the center of the block. (I then cut them circular on the outside with a circle cutting attachment to my router which looked pretty but was a mistake, see below). Using the circle cutting attachment on the router and the pilot hole, Cut a circular recess in the base for the thru hull nut. Make it deep enough for the nut to be fully recessed in the cavity. If you don't do this the wooden base will sit on top of the nut and not be an effective support. Now turn the base over and use the pilot hole to cut out a hole for the threaded part of the thru hull using the same hole saw used to cut the hole in the hull. The result is a block of teak that fits over the thru hull and goes all the way down to touch the hull. Shape the bottom of the mounting block with a belt sander (or a plane) to conform to the curvature of the hull (it doesn't have to be perfect). Now screw the sea cock onto the thru hull without the mounting block and count the turns until it seats all the way on. It probably won't touch the hull. Unscrew it and try it again with the mounting block in place, counting the turns again. Cut down the mounting block until the thru hull engages almost all of its threads. You can measure the amount to remove by taking the difference between the two counts and measuring the length of that many threads on the thru hull. This is a little more (by 2 or 3 threads) than the amount you need to cut off the block. When you have the mounting block cut to the right thickness give it a coat of penetrating epoxy then a coat of regular epoxy following the instructions. You can buy small epoxy repair kits at West Marine that are just big enough to do all of the thru hulls on a Cat 27. For final assembly glue the mounting block to the hull with 4200 and screw on the sea cock with plenty of teflon tape. For security I drilled a pilot hole and used a 3/4" long stainless steel lag screw to attach the thru hull flange to the mounting block. Don't drill right through the hull when drilling the pilot hole. To do it really right you should drill through the mounting base and the hull for bronze bolts to attach the hull to the flange through the mounting base. I wasn't keen on drilling three more holes through the hull so I relied on the 4200 and the lag screw to hold things in place. If the seacock moves when you turn it you will notice it right away and well before it is likely to leak. When screwing the seacocks on remember to finish them with the handles where you can both reach and turn them. This may require a little extra effort but a seacock you can't operate is useless. Also make sure your hoses can be attached and still run without kinking. You will have to install a tail piece on each seacock with pipe threads on one end and a hose barb on the other. Use plenty of teflon tape here too. Note I had to get a tailpiece (from the West Marine Catalog) with a 1 1/4" pipe thread and a 1 1/2" hose barb to connect the head pump-out. All of the waste line hoses and head and tank fittings are 1 1/2". Attach the hoses using double hose clamps and consider replacing the old hoses at this time. You can get 90 degree tailpieces but be careful how these screw in and don't let them get in the way of the handles etc. I had to replace the "Y" valve too as I broke the old one trying to get the hoses off. It is cheaper to cut the old hoses off and save the "Y" valve as you should replace the hoses anyway (another lesson learned). Once I figured out what was what, I did the engine intake (replacing the scoop strainer thru hull) and the sink/ice box thru hull and installed the backing blocks, seacocks and tailpieces in about an hour for each (the backing blocks were pre-made and already coated). If you start on one day with the first steps and do all four up to the point where you coat the raw edges of the hole with epoxy you should be able to finish up the following day as long as you don't have too much fitting to do on the mounting blocks. I rounded my mounting blocks first then had a hard time slicing them down to the right thickness. Try leaving them square until you are sure they are the right thickness so you can cut them on edge on a table saw (cut one side all the way up to the hole in the middle then turn them over and do the other side), when they are the right thickness trim them by cutting off the corners and making them octagonal. They should look neat that way and if you have a couple of hours and a belt sander you can still make them round. I added raw water strainers of the wire screen type on the engine raw water intake (a large one) and on the head intake (a smaller one). Cheap and good protection. They are plastic and you must take care (and use plenty of teflon tape) when screwing tapered metal pipe fittings into them as you can split them by the wedging action of the tapered pipe threads. I also went a little overboard and plumbed the sink/ice box junction with another bronze ball valve and fittings. Well at least it won't leak! I expect when all is said and done I spent around $250 or maybe $300 to replace all the gate valves and volcanoes. I am left over with a Makita grinder, a 1 1/8" Remgrit hole saw in fine shape, a bunch of teak pieces of varying size and shape and a fine feeling of security about hull integrity when I shut everything up tight for a night on the hook. Now about those cockpit drains.....
- Status
- Not open for further replies.