01 SAN -draining ballast tanks popping the breaker

Buddy just got his 01 SAN in the water today for the 1st time and left the manuals at work. Ballast filled fine, but when he drains the tanks it seem to be popping the breaker switch. System has the 2 seacock knobs behind the driver. Are those supposed to be fully CW or CCW when draining? How about when filling? Where are the drain pumps? In the tanks? Any ideas? Thanks much for any help!

Note sure what is causing the breaker to flip. Assume it would be a short somewhere or too much load on that circuit.

Seacock valves should be open (or all the way in)(believe that is CW)) when filling and emptying. You only want them closed when the tanks are empty and you don't want them to fill without closing the shutoff valve in the engine compartment.

Hope that helps.


(Message edited by jroyal on April 30, 2005)

Jeff, Thanks for the reply! Do you know where the drain pumps are located?

The drain and fill pumps will be on the port side of the boat below the motor. They will be mouted to the stringer just below the motor. I would suggest removing both the lower and upper access panels to get to it. It's not that big of deal to take them out.

If the system is factory and hasn't been modified, there will be one 750 attwood aerator pump to fill and one to empty.

The routing of the stock ballast is as follows:

The water will intake through the thru hull go through the fill pump and push water through the drain pump in reverse. Then the line tee's off and goes to each tank. On the top of each tank near the front, there is a vent that runs to the seacock valves you were asking about originally. Those seacock valves basically put an airlock on the tank so the tanks will not take on water while driving if the valve on the thru-hull is open.

Jeff, Thanks much, great info!!