We really enjoy living aboard, however nothing can make the day go from living the dream to camping or roughing it, like losing your running water.

Everything was working just fine, and then the next time we turned on the faucet in the galley.  Blame, nothing. No faint sound of the pump running from the bowels of the engine room/bilge and worse yet, no water.

Tested them all, showers, fore and aft sinks and showers, even the toilet. Nothing, Nada, Zip.  So we were clearly thinking it was the pump.  I could put my hand on the pump and it would trigger a slight movement of the motor about every 1 seconds, but the motor wouldn’t even turn one full rotation.  I figured I could fix this.
So into the bowels of the boat.  I opened 2 of the 4 hatches on the galley floor.  and by laying on the floor from the feet to the waste with my head down below the floor board reaching for the screws that mount the pump to the shelf.  Once it was loose, I figured that I may be able to fix the unit.  I checked the inline fuse and it was blown, along with part of the actual fuse holder melted to the point where one of the sides the fuse holder was missing.  I figured maybe the tank had run dry and the motor started to try to pump air and after continuous running, maybe it blew the fuse.  Then realized that it may be something all together different.  I dis-assembled the pressure cutoff switch that is built into the diaphragm had of the unit.

After taking the pump apart, cleaning the plastic valves and and bench testing it while dis-assebled, I was getting the pump to come on and off.  I figured it was fixed and maybe the issue had just been some small particle getting jammed within the small pressure sending unit.  After re-assebmling the pump, base, and pressure switch.  I put it back down into the engine room and hooked everything back up and it started to pump, for about 3 seconds.  Then it cycled for short 3 second bursts and then stopped again.  I attempted to adjust the pressure switch thinking that may be the issue but to no avail.

OK, so pull the unit back out,  Give it a long shot and see if West Marne by us actually has one in stock.  It seems that 95% of the time we need something, this smaller West doesn’t have a lot of merchandise for larger boats.  (We got kind of spoiled when we were n Kemah right across the street from the flagship store)

To my surprise they did and I was a able to get the new unit installed in less than an hour, including having to go back up to West to purchase an inline fuse.  Given the last one actually melted the housing, I was going to be sure there was one on our boat.

Back to having running water !!!!