Quote:
Originally Posted by travisz
Bradon, I like your idea A LOT!! how hard was it to plum the whole system and roughly about how much did it cost?
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Travis, this is going to be lengthy so bear with me.
The hurdle you face is that your boat was not equipped from the factory with rear tanks. Mine was. My install was as simple as buying 3/4" plastic fittings (threaded caps, T's), from Home Depot, several feet of extra 3/4" ballast hose and some 3/4" hose clamps. I piggy backed the extra tank into the factory rear tank plumbing. Stock tank would fill, overflow into the additional tank which would fill and overflow out of the stock thru hull drain on the side of the boat. There are several fittings on the top and bottom of the tanks and draining was set up using the factory drain pump in a "T" type connection in between the bottom fittings on both tanks. Max cost for me was maybe $20-$40 in parts as my hard tanks were free and I had everything in place already.
Below is a pic of the stock tanks. Note that they are angled and one has to be flipped upside down to sit perfectly with the other one in the rear hatch. Each tank closest to the motor was only connected to the hoses and not bolted down, so I could remove it when it was time for oil change, winterization etc. You can see there are 3 fittings on each side of the tank.
Integrating a flip switch system in your boat is going to be somewhat costly and not near as cheap or easy as it was for me. There are several things you need to consider before you go any further with this.
1. As S Dub said - you need to find out if the factory thru hull water pickup will accommodate additional fill pumps. My guess is that Malibu made just one hull pickup and capped off provisions for rear pumps if they weren't an option on the build sheet, but I could be wrong.
2. You don't have the factory rear tanks, so you are without 2 fill/drain switches on the dash and wiring to the dash, you lack 2 fill pumps and wiring, you lack 2 drain pumps and wiring, you do not have thru hull drain ports installed on the sides of the hull and you are missing all the 3/4" plumbed hose and clamps that would normally be ran from factory.
3. You need to figure out if this is something you can tackle on your own, or do you need to get a shop to do it? Can you afford it? Do you want to be without your boat during the peak of the season while this stuff is being installed?
Depending on your answers, you may just want to shell under $300 and do a stand alone over the side plug in pump
http://www.buywake.com/catalog/detail/ST_6NU8g and twin V-drive sac set
http://www.buywake.com/catalog/detail/CNsdG to get you through the summer, then do your custom flip switch over the winter or something.
If your going to do this yourself, I would suggest checking out wake makers site:
http://www.wakemakers.com/wakeboard-ballast-parts I would assume their guys on the phone would be able to answer questions you may have too. Call your local dealer for install prices if you don't feel comfortable doing it. Its going to be a decent amount of work involving drilling into the side of your boat.
If you can't find the stock Malibu rear tanks locally, I could probably get you 4 of them shipped from our dealer here in Nashville for a very reasonable price.
Best of luck,
Brandon