bilge pump not working

S

sigsmaster

New Member
May 9, 2009
39
Greenbank WA
Boat Info
'98 Express Cruiser 215
Engines
Mercruiser 5.0
Broke the boat out de- winterized it and everything is good except the bilge pump is not working. When I hit the switch the little lite in the switch doesn't even illuminate. All connections are good. No fuse on fuse block labeled bilge pump. But the one marked sump is good. Where do I go from here?
Bryan
 
Check to make sure power is coming into the switch. Incoming power is usually daisy chained from switch to switch. Make sure you don't have a loose connection on the one before.
 
magstang1 said:
Check to make sure power is coming into the switch. Incoming power is usually daisy chained from switch to switch. Make sure you don't have a loose connection on the one before.
Click to expand...
Mustang
Looking at the back of the switch I have a black wire, brown, and brown with red stripe. I take it that the black is the power? Also the switches on either side of bilge pump switch both work (if that adds any info).
 
I would start with either a volt meter at the switch or checking to see if you can operate the pump manually.

The pump should be wired directly to a battery, so activate the pump by hand to verify it is indeed wired and operational. If that is a go, use the meter to verify power at the switch. The activation switch on the side of the pump itself can get gunked up which won't allow it to float up. That's where I'm putting my money.
 
When I got my boat out of storage where the yard 'springized' it, I found that they had not connected the wires for one of the panels to my batteries and my pumps didn't work. I found this after launching the boat and running her to the slip. Everything else worked, just not the pumps. Had I not found this early, it could have been catasrophic at some future time. Do a close inspeciton of everything around your batteries and see if a wire has fallen down somewhere and was missed and not connected.
 
OK here is some info I got.
Tested pump by connecting it directly to battery and it worked.
Tested float switch with resistance meter and that tests good.
Test switch by swapping out with fresh water pump and that tested good.
Wires at control switch, with battery on or off; brown/red=.137v, brown=.005v
Wires at pump, battery off control switch off; brown/red=.175v, brown=.000v
Wires at pump,battery on control switch on; brown/red=.001v, brown=.001v
Wires at pump,battery on control switch off; brown/red=.130v, brown=.001v

Any ideas?
 
Shouldn't be that difficult
Do you have 12 volts at the pump with switch on?
Do you have 12 volts at the output side of the switch with the switch on?
 
Where is the last place, from the battery, you have 12 volts, in regards to the pump, switch?
 
scoflaw said:
Where is the last place, from the battery, you have 12 volts, in regards to the pump, switch?
Click to expand...
The battery switch. I don't know how this is wired. The wires go into a wire bundle that I can't really reach. I'm assuming from that bundle it goes to the main battery switch. Should one of the wires going to the control switch at the helm be reading 12 volts? Or is there a relay somewhere?
 
Well if I read the test results correctly, you never tested for 12V at the float switch...which should have 12V 100% of the time regardless of any switch position.

If you do have 12V at the float switch and cant get it to the cockpit switch, best guess is you have a loose wire or blown fuse between the battery switch and cockpit switch. I am assuming everything else 12V on the boat is working with the battery switch on?

And if you have multiple batteries all are on?

211manual_15s.jpg
 
Ok basic trouble shooting; is the SWITCH in the proper position? YES. Is the circut breaker/fuse set/good? YES (really? We'll get back to that). Is the bus powered? YES (no not really). Is the componet/s good?YES.

So getting back to that fuse, the fuse for the bilge pump is in the engine compartment! On the foward engine compartment bulkhead to be exact not behind the dashboard labled sump. And yes it was blown.
Is the bus powered? Nope! The battery used to power the pump was rigged to my aux battery not my my main battery like I assumed (ASS of U and ME).
The problem is fixed.
I can fix a $170 millon dollar airplane but can't figure out a $10 pump. I'm an idiot.

Sent from my Nook using Tapatalk
 
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