Ballast Question

Put the boat in yesterday, and went to fill up the ballast....and nothing. Took off to try and purge the system of air with the switches on, and the bags filled up a little and stopped. Flipped the switch to empty the little bit of water that had entered, and they emptied just fine. The pumps seem to be working fine in reverse, but not when filling. Any ideas??

Check out the impellers first. Next, flip on the "fill" switch and then flip it off and then flip it on again. Sounds like the rubber fingers on the impeller are going one direction(reverse) and don't care for the fill direction.

Is there a valve between the pump and the thru-hull fitting in the bottom of the boat? (there should be). Is the valve closed?

When you turn the pumps on to fill, can you hear them running?

I believe there are different pumps for filling and emptying. How long did you drive for and were you up to around 25mph? Should have filled if you were at speed for 3 mins or so. On the electronic solenoid there is a switch that locks them from opening, but sounds like that wasn't your problem because you had some water in the bags. Try to stay up at speed for a little longer to purge the air.

I stayed up at speed for probably 10 minutes or so(30mph). I didn't think it was the pumps, because I don't believe that all three pumps would have gone bad over the winter. There is a valve in the bottom of the boat, but i don't think that is it either because it was letting some water in(It may be partially closed or something..I'll have to double check). I will get the boat back out this weekend and mess with it, but I didn't know if someone has had a similar problem...thanks.

I would definitely check the impellor on the pumps. I had the same problem last summer. I took apart the pump and replaced the rubber impellor and they are working fine now.

How much is "some water"? Are we talking a few cups, or 1/4 tank?

1/4 of a tank in my two rear ballasts, and probably 1/2 tank in my center ballast. I will be pulling the impellors tonight to see if that could be it.

Are these flexible bags, or hard tanks?

If they are hard tanks, do they have valves in the vent lines? It almost sounds like the the vent lines are closed and it pumps up until the pressure gets to be more than the pumps can deliver.

They are flexible bags....I pulled the ballast pump on it, and the impeller was gone. The pump is a Rule 2000 GPH pump(Model 207F)...Does anyone know if I can just buy the impeller for this, or do I have to buy a new pump all together?? I also think that I have a problem with power getting to the pump also, because the pump will not turn at all when hooked up to the existing wiring, but when I hook the pump straight up to a battery, it kicks on. I know there is power getting to the solenoids, because I can hear them click on and off, but the pump will not kick on....any ideas??

Brandon:

Let's make sure we are talking about the right pump. From what I can find on the internet the Rule 207f is NOT a 2000 GPH pump, it is rated at 1200. Here is the Rule web page:

http://www.rule-industries.com/prodInfoApp/servlet/DisplayItemDetail?itemId=207F&catalogId=Marine&cat egoryId=RMLVA&typeId=RFSMC

Is that the pump you are using?

That is what is known as a "centrifugal" pump. The impeller is a very simple sprial vane looking thing that does NOT make physical contact with the pump case. It spins the water very rapidly and the centrifugal force pushes the water out the side.

It is very unusual for such an impeller to be "gone". What is common, however, is to get a small bit of debris stuck in the vanes which will render it ineffective. Small debris can pass through the pump okay, but a long stringy object will wrap up in the vanes and reduce its output to nearly nothing.

For this reason they often make the pump easy to take apart. If the output drops pull the pump apart and remove whatever is inside.

Another thing that confuses is me is that in your original post you said "The pumps seem to be working fine in reverse". A centrifugal pump is NOT reversible! They will also not hold water back when they are not running so unless there was another means of preventing backflow all the water would drain out when you turned them off.

In order to have a reversible pump that would hold the water in while the pump was off you would need to have a "Flexible impeller" pump. Such a pump looks something like this:

http://www.jabsco.com/prodInfoApp/servlet/DisplayItemDetail?itemId=23680-4003&catalogId=Marine&categoryId=JMGEN&typeId=JMBP S

The rubber impeller in these style of pumps do wear out, especially if operated dry. Note that dry includes continuing to empty once the tank/bag has gone dry! There is usually a plate at the end of the pump that is easily removed to give access to the impeller. Simply reach in and pull the old impeller out and then slide the new impeller in (giving it a twist as you insert it to fold the blades).

If you know the make and model of the pump them you can order replacement imellers quite easily. If you don't know the make and model and the old impeller is still intact enough to count the number of blades, the diameter, height and shaft size then you can order it up based on that alone or simply match it up at the parts counter.

As for the electrical problem: You say you can hear the solenoids clicking: that mean that there is control voltage getting from the switch to the small terminal on the solenoid. That doesn't mean that the main power to the solenoid is intact. A flexible impeller pump requires a fair amount of current, in the rage of 15 to 20 amps. There should be a separate fuse/circuit breaker for this line, which is indepenant of the control voltage.

Rod,
I have seperate pumps to drain the bags, so they are not the same as my main pump that fills the bags. I am not sure that we are talking about the same pump, because the pump that I have is an older version of the pump that you posted. It may be rated at only 1200 GPH, but the casing just has RULE 2000 printed on it, so I just assumed it was a 2000 GPH pump. But regardless, it is the same type pump. There is a plastic wheel with those veins on it, but I just assumed that this pump had a rubber impeller in it, and maybe I assumed wrong. I think that I may be chasing the wrong problem. It may just be my electrical problem alone that is causing the bags to keep from filling.