Finally figured out Tsunami manifold

Well, I finally took one of my pumps into Lowe's to figure out my inlet manifold. I know several people have struggled with the oddball 1-1/8" fittings on the Tsunami pumps, so hopefully this will be of some help. This is going to end up a little larger overall than I really wanted it to be, but I found some fittings that work very well with the Tsunami 1200's.

These are 2" sanitary / sewer tees, and 2 x 1-1/4 reducer bushings. The rubber gasket on the pump base is from the sink repair area, I think it's meant for a bathroom sink drain. The jam nut that comes with the pump fits perfectly inside the 1-1/4 pipe size. The nut is snug, but will slip just a bit, so combined with the rubber gasket I should be able to orient the pump discharge in any direction.

Just wanted to toss up some pics while it's still in pieces. Let me know if you see something that could be changed for the better.

The only issue I see is with the reducer and jam nut. You say the nut is snug but will slip in the reducer. Assuming the reducer is glued to the t's...how do you plan on being able to remove the pumps at a later date if needed? Are you going to glue the jam nut to the reducer?

Yeah, I considered that, but I think it will be fine. It fits very snug, like it's kinda hard to remove or install without screwing the pump into it for leverage.

Here's what I did

Wes' manifold was kind of where I started thinking on mine.

Looks good, have you had any problems with it? Did you cut the threaded inlets shorter? I need to cut the inlets shorter on my drain pumps, and I need to figure out a way to fixture them for a square cut.

Attwood makes these pumps with two different length inlets. Mine have the longer inlets, and I'm not sure my setup would work with the short inlets.

Trace,

Awesome McGyver type engineering. That's the most elegant solution for those pumps. I am starting to regret giving my buddy my Tsunami 1200 pumps...

One more thing...

Don't forget that those are two piece pumps, much easier to work with with the bases off.

Rule makes adapters from 1 1/8 to 1 and 1 1/2 they are plastic but they work. The reason for the 1 1/8 size is because these are really bilge pumps and the coast gaurd wants no fitting between the exit of your bilge and the thru hull.
David

I think an important thing to consider (perhaps you already have) Is a shut off valve. A brass valve that has no plastic between it and the thru-hull adapter. If something ever cracked, for any reason, then you could shut it off and salvage the boat from sinking.

In addition, I think it's the cleanest Pump Manifold setup I've seen yet!

PS, I have a cable actuated 1.5" gate valve if anybody is intersted...

Thanks. This is just the manifold, I have a 1.5" brass seacock and electrically actuated gate valve that will go ahead of this.

I really don't understand the USCG design parameters on the pumps. 1-1/8" bilge hose is pretty crappy quality. Also, these are actually livewell pumps, and I believe designed to be mounted directly thru the transom, below the waterline. That's why they make two different lengths - for aluminum hulls, fiberglass hulls, reinforced transoms, etc. I thought all this kind of thing was supposed to be brass? aLSO THE PP paddlewheel? :-?

Mikeski- Yours is an RV dump valve, right? I don't have full faith in my electric one, and if it shorts out I'll be looking for a way to run a cable.

That is really slick, Trace. Thanks for sharing the idea with us. The manifold you made will fit in tight spots a little better than one that has the pumps at 90 degrees. I wonder if it might suck water a slight amount better too.

Here's a pic inside. It's sort of a re-entrant flow, which is not ideal, but I think it'll work fine.

No problem with cutting my inlets off - mine were the long ones as well - just thread the nut on the inlet, runnning it up towards the pump base, then when you cut the stem, you use the nut to "chase" the threads and if you don't get the cut perfectly square, it's no big deal, you can still get something to thread onto it...obviously I didn't need to do that as I just went with the pvc tube/hose clamp route...works fine...my entire system works like a shot, fill times are just under two minutes to fill my 600 lb. midship sacs and just abit longer to fill my 700 lb. aft sacs - I use four pumps...I more or less designed mine to be able to be taken apart if need be although it's quite tight under my engine...

Yours looks good - nice clean engineering

(Message edited by wesgardner on July 02, 2006)

(Message edited by wesgardner on July 02, 2006)

(Message edited by wesgardner on July 02, 2006)

Dumb question's, are you all mounting the manifold and the pump's inside the boat,and ware is your water inlet through a hole in the boat? Do you think you could set it up to fill a series of sacs like too 750's and too 450's. Verry clever idea by the way those Tsunami pump's rock.

I would like to know this too. I have a 21V that only has one fill pump. I want to add two other pumps so I will have one fill pump for each bag. Do you have any other pics of the installed system?

Yes Trace... Cable actuated RV dump valve with 1.5" glue on flanges.

If you were goint to use only two tsunami 1200 how big of a scoop is needed?

another question for the pump gurus: Does water pressure coming thru the thru-hull damage the impeller on these pumps? as in when you're at speed but don't have the pump on, and the shut-off valve is open.

I'm currently using a Rule 2000 to fill 3 bags, but may consider going to a setup as shown above - nice work btw.

I have the Rival system
I found that when the valve is open and the boat is under way...the bags will fill even if the pumps are not on
I've wanted to fill the port side while under way,for example, but the other bags begin to fill also....just from the force of the water

I haven't made much progress on the installation. I need to cut up some short pieces of 2" pipe and find a place to fit this manifold. It's going to be very tight. Where the parts will fit inside will determine to a degree where the scupper intake goes, but it will be somewhere between the gas tank and the transom. I'm using a 1.5" scupper, 1.5" brass ball valve, 1.5" gate valve, and then to this manifold.

Justyn - For 2 T-1200 fill pumps you could probably use 1" without causing restriction, but 1-1/4" would be better.

Cliff - Right now my design is very close to the Rival system. How quickly do your other bags fill? If I could find some 1" full port actuated valves, I'd rather use 4 separate valves than the single gate valve, but I can't find anything. Flow-Rites are said to allow some blow-by, and sprinkler and Red Hat valves are restrictive.

So - Rich - no, the water pressure won't damage your pumps, but it will fill your sacks if you don't cut off the flow somewhere.

I'll post some more pics as I progress with the install.