On one beautiful sunny day in Seattle...

On one beautiful, sunny day in Seattle, I spent time outside working on killing off the mildew growing on my body.

No - ha, ha, that's not true.  Instead I spent time down in the bilge, replacing the cover on our raw water pump with our newly arrived Speedseal cover.  We've talked about the Speedseal pump cover before, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise to you that I'm installing it... 

Here's the water pump, with the old cover in place.  Unlike on so many boat engines, this one is easy to access.  In the picture, I have pulled all but two of the stainless allen-head screws holding the cover in place (I replaced the original phillips screws long ago).  Nothing was difficult to remove, since I had this apart just a couple of weeks ago.

Here's a comparison between the old, eroded cover and the new one.  You can see that the impeller has worn quite a bit of depth into the old cover.  In fact, in the close-up below, the roughness at the top is an indication that backflow of water was occurring there, sneaking past the impeller, just at the high pressure discharge of the pump chamber.  This is erosive wear at its best.

Erosion has been at work

So, finally, the new SpeedSeal cover in place.  Looks pretty, doesn't it?  I took this picture because I know that it won't be long before it looks a lot like the outside of the old cover did.  Installing was a snap.  Insert the two lower screws part way, slide the cover under them, insert the two upper screws, and tighten everything finger tight.  That's it.  Seems too easy, doesn't it?  More screws are not needed because this cover is at least twice as thick as the old one, and therefore does not flex.  Four screws are adequate to the job.

Sunny days are as rare as hen's teeth this time of year in Seattle.  Think I *will* go out in the cockpit with a beer and work on that mildew.

On one beautiful sunny day in Seattle...