More on Pumps

Crummy weather two weekends in a row, an ideal chance to do the three pump-related jobs that needed doing: replace the bilge float switch, find out why the fish-well pump is whizzing but not splurting, and connecting the manual pump with the outside world. Simple. If only working on boats ever was. After my first trip to Marine Superstore I set about replacing the float switch. After a lot of staring and coffee drinking I decided that the only way of getting at the old switch was to remove the engine, or part dismantle the entire front end. We'll leave that for a bit then. So on to the next job, the pump outlet. I'll cut the story short, as it involved three more trips to the MS including buying back again the skin fitting I had returned on a previous trip, and buying screws to replace four I had put in a "safe" place (only to find them again as I stepped back into the boat). All that because for some reason, the manufacturers had installed pipes and skin fittings only very slightly different from local ones, but different enough. Two weekends later, all the jobs are done. And I never needed the replace the float switch either: in the course of my burrowing in the bilges I found a broken electrical connection which I fixed in five minutes. Now I wonder if MS will take that new float switch back...?