Can Anyone Help - Bilge Pump?

[Roamer]

While cleaning and working on the 1988 Sorrento 25 Sundancer, I found a bilge pump under the main cabin floor. I cannot find a switch to activiate the pump. The Bilge Pump switch on the helm panel runs the bilge pump in the engine compartment but not the cabin bilge pump.

I talked to Sea Ray and was told that they only go back 10 years. The local Sea Ray dealer only goes back three years.

The person at Sea Ray thought the bilge pump should have a float switch, which it doesn't have. The wires don't show any place where they were joined together. The wires appear to have power going to them. The wires go into a plastic sleeve and disappear under the floor of the head.
I even looked through all of the books that came with the boat.

Any ideas where this switch could be...or does it not exist? Thanks.

 

[bigpursuit]

Certain bilge pumps are designed with no switch but run every so often(60 seconds or so). Once it starts if the pump detects water it runs until the water is gone. If the pump is this type and it does not go off every couple minutes it need to be replaced. If there is no float switch then I imagine it works as described.

 

[Lazy Daze]

Only going back 3 years! :smt013 That's absolutely ridiculous! Basically they were telling you to go pound sand - we don't want your business.

Anyways, it could be an automatic bilge pump. Some have a water sensor built-in and don't need an external float switch. Can you read the model number and brand? Look it up on that manufacturer's website.

What happens if you dump a bunch of water in there?

 

[Roamer]

Hi Lazy Daze & bigpursuit. Thanks for your help.

Let me first say that this is not my boat. I own a classic Chris-Craft Motoryacht. This boat belongs to a friend of my friend who bought it without having a survey done. It's in good, solid shape but he is "sinking" a bunch of $$ into the boat. I'm helping him solve a few problems.

I'm familiar with the automatic bilge pumps and have used them several times. After reading your responses, I got inquisitive and took a harder look at the pump. While it's a Rule red,white & blue, I found that someone had put resin on the top of the pump and painted the resin red so it looked like a standard pump. I have no idea why as the top is not cracked or broken. After chipping away the resin, I found the following: Computerized Pump Fully Automatic 500 GPH I figure you'd agree me with me that this looks like an "auto pump." That solves the problem.

Lazy Daze - regarding the dealer...you're right! All I'll say is I live in Los Angeles. If you know anything about the one West Coast dealer, if you don't or didn't buy one of their big, expensive new or used boats, they could care less!

Didn't need to pour any water into the bilge. The way we found the problem.....the guy took my friend & I for a ride. Once the boat was on plane, his son started screaming that we were sinking. I found almost three inches of water in the back of the cabin against the bulkhead between the stairs & the head wall. That's the area where you enter the cuddy cabin. We stopped the boat and I located the floor access. When I opened it, I found fresh, stagnet water literally touching the bottom of the floor boards. We got the water out and checked for leaks....none so that's what got me to this point.

Again, thanks for your thoughts.

Fair winds & clam seas always.

Roamer