It seems that every time we have come to the boat this spring, something has required attention. When we arrived this past Saturday, yet another maintenance item reared its head. When I turned on the power to the fresh water pressure pump, we were greeted with the sound of... nothing. No water pressure.
A little bit of diagnostics disclosed that the pump was ok, but the pressure switch was not.
Since it is nearly impossible to remove the pressure switch assembly with the pump installed without dropping important bits into the bilge, it had to come out. Now that sounds somewhat trivial, but it is not. Advanced Class IV boat yoga is required to get a screwdriver on the mounting screws, and the water connections are even worse.
Once removed, I disassembled the pump head and pressure switch assembly. Delving into the switch assembly, I discovered that the micro switch which actually controls the power feed to the pump had failed mechanically.
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| The micro switch, shown with a thumbdrive for scale |
Since we had a spare pump head aboard, I "simply" installed it and reinstalled the pump, thinking that I'd look at getting another micro switch and repairing the old pump head to keep as a spare.
Ha!
The brand new pump head would not move water. I presume this was due to the internal flapper valves having taken a set. It took me 3 more install/removals of the pump to confirm that the new head was not going to work. I really dislike when new stuff fails to work out of the box.
So for the fourth time I removed the pump, and reinstalled the old pump head but with the pressure switch from the new head.
It worked. But the pump shuts off almost immediately, telling me that I reassembled the pressure switch incorrectly (I think I know what's wrong).
So, I took an Ibuprofin and ordered a couple new micro switches via Amazon. I will rebuild the old pressure switch next weekend. And then I will have to employ the advanced boat yoga one more time (hopefully...) to reinstall the rebuilt pressure switch assembly.
Then all I will have remaining is to recalibrate the pressure switch so that the pump delivers the desired pressure. That will only require Class III boat yoga.
Hopefully.
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2 comments:
I see a business opportunity in your future! Boat Yoga classes.
Oh yes, nothing like installing a new thing that doesn't work right out of the box. Add to that the pain and suffering required to access and service the part on a boat. Now that I'm part of the Medicare generation, there are some boat projects (most boat projects?) that I immediately associate with pain.
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