Was out for eyes yesterday afternoon and the wind went from a nice Walleye chop to 6-7 footers. Any way we stared for home which was about 4 miles down the lake. When you guys have water coming over the boat do you leave your bilage pump on for the whole trip, or do you turn it on and off as you go? I guess what im trying to say is if the pump goes dry for a few minits will it burn it out or are they built for this kind of abuse.
Thanks for your input.
P.S I will of course Check with the manufacture to get their opinion, I would just like to know what other guys/gals do.
Jim Z
A nice way to work the bilge pump is to put a float switch on the pump. Install a three position switch - center off, manual on, or auto on. This way, if you are storing the boat, and want to insure that the pump never runs, then leave it in the off position.
If you have your boat at the dock, and it might rain over night, or if you are in the lake, and want to insure that the pump comes on in case of excess water in the bilge, leave the switch in the auto position. This will pump the bilge to about 1 1/2 inches of the bottom or perhaps less. If you want to pump it as dry as the pump will pump it, then run it in manual on until no more water comes out.
If you leave your manual switch installed without the float, and you run into this situation again - simply toggle the switch from time to time, keeping an eye on the outlet, and turn it off, when the flow slows or stops.
In general, it does your pump little good to leave it running with no water going through the pump.
Take care
REW
chadk66
06-10-2001, 06:54 PM
Just to add to REW, if your gonna tear out the back of your boat and install a float, go ahead and install another bilge pump while your in there. It is extremely cheap insurance. I can speak from personal experience that you should have two pumps on seperate circuits. The first one will fail when you need it most.