Ballast Pumps blowing fuses

[BumbleBee]

Hi All,

I have a 2008 VLX.

My Rear Left & Front Ballast "fill" pumps blew their respective fuses today at same time !.

Both fuses were replaced, and both fuses blew after two seconds !.

After returning home, the rear pump was removed from housing, a new fuse installed and once again the fuses blew !.

Does anyone have any Ideas ?.

Tomorrow I'm going to try a different pump on the blown circuits to check that it's only the pumps and hopefully not something more involved .

Edited October 22, 2009 by BumbleBee

[Chia]

do you have any other pumps on the same switch?

[BumbleBee]

do you have any other pumps on the same switch?

No buddy, stockstandard set up running off "MUX" switchs. Each pump has own switch.

[Slurpee]

Take a real good look at the wiring around wherever the relay control box is. I have an '01 so I couldn't tell ya where (we used switches in the old days). But I had my low power stereo fuse cook off the other day and upon inspection, the bilge pump hot wire and the stereo GND wire had the insulation melted off them and had touched popping the fuse. Some experiments showed me that the bilge pump wire (which was pretty thin 20awg for some reason... since corrected with 12awg) was getting hot enough to soften the insulation and create the problem.

If you're handy enough you could take a fused 12V plug and disconnect your pumps and power them from the plug and see if they run. They probably will.

And/Or you could disconnect your pumps and replace the fuse and see if the fuse blows again (indicating it's something in the wiring). That doesn't prove your pumps still work though, but it's the easiest thing to do and the most likely.

[Chia]

how far are you from the dealer, sounds like a warranty issue. A short somewhere or the mux switches are clapped out.

[Bake's Marine]

Most likely it's the pump generating too much load and blowing the thermal fuse.

Is the impeller stuck on the ballast pump? (can you grab onto with your hand and twist?) if it is stuck try to break it free. If the pump is installed too tight into the housing or if they get left on for a really long time the impeller can in a sense get melted to the body.

The impeller is the blue part at the bottom of the pump in this picture http://www.bakesonline.com/detail.aspx?ID=1613 if it spins free and still blows the fuse then that is a bad pump (most likely) or there is a short in the wiring harness somewhere.

Hope this helps you out

-Paul

[Slurpee]

Most likely it's the pump generating too much load and blowing the thermal fuse.

Is the impeller stuck on the ballast pump? (can you grab onto with your hand and twist?) if it is stuck try to break it free. If the pump is installed too tight into the housing or if they get left on for a really long time the impeller can in a sense get melted to the body.

The impeller is the blue part at the bottom of the pump in this picture http://www.bakesonline.com/detail.aspx?ID=1613 if it spins free and still blows the fuse then that is a bad pump (most likely) or there is a short in the wiring harness somewhere.

Hope this helps you out

-Paul

Good advice on the pumps. I'm curious about how often the centrifugal cartridge pumps fail that way?

Edited October 24, 2009 by Slurpee

[Bake's Marine]

Most likely it's the pump generating too much load and blowing the thermal fuse.

Is the impeller stuck on the ballast pump? (can you grab onto with your hand and twist?) if it is stuck try to break it free. If the pump is installed too tight into the housing or if they get left on for a really long time the impeller can in a sense get melted to the body.

The impeller is the blue part at the bottom of the pump in this picture http://www.bakesonline.com/detail.aspx?ID=1613 if it spins free and still blows the fuse then that is a bad pump (most likely) or there is a short in the wiring harness somewhere.

Hope this helps you out

-Paul

Good advice on the pumps. I'm curious about how often the centrifugal cartridge pumps fail that way?

Very Rare, those pumps are really good pumps. I know if you leave them on for a long time (30 minutes +) the impeller can get stuck like i told you. I know this because I'm guilty of forgetting about a fill pump running while we are out. All i had to do is break the impeller loose and the pump worked fine again.

-Paul