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Front Ballast; getting the water in from the lake


BigE

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I'm wanting to install a pump for front ballast. If I use the hole for the T-handle to get my water, how do I go about draining the remnant water from the bilge? Seems it would be a pain to remove the pump fittings each time to work the drain?

Anybody doing this that can help?

Thanks!

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BigE, if it was me going to install a pump for filling up front then I would go ahead and drill a new hole and install a seperate brass thru hull and ball c*** for safety reasons and convenience. I occasionally get alot of water up there from surfing and the drain is a big time saver after pulling out. Granted it won't get all of the water, I normally have to vacuum out about 2 gal, but it helps a lot to get most of the water out. Putting in a thru hull is not the big scary project that it appears to be, I've done two so far. If you take your time and measure everything numerous times and use the correct sealant you'll be golden. For draining, if you are going to use a reversible pump (Johnson/Jabsco) the single hole you drilled will serve as both the fill and drain. If you use and aereator style pump (Pirhana...) the drain pump can pretty much be located anywhere with the pump idealy below or at the lowest portion of the bag/tank to drain it as completely as possible. I have both and will always recommend to go with a reversible even though they cost more. When you start adding up the cost of all of the associated parts for the drain side of an aereater set up ( 2 sets of lines, fittings, another pump) and the slower fill/drain times, IMO the reversible is hard to argue against. Good luck, Bill.

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Perhaps yours is different, but the ski locker in ours has a drain plug (not a T-handle, just a square plug), so I can drain it that way or just drain it into the bilge from the drain plug that's at the back wall of the ski locker. Neither fully drain it.

I just used the T-handle by the V-drive for my front bag pump (and drilled 1" thru-hulls for the other pumps). Since the front bag was the smallest I didn't mind that it was only a 3/4" opening instead of 1". Works well and the T-handle by the V-drive is worthless for draining anything anyway.

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Thanks guys, I'll look at both those plans!

Hopefully wakemakers will have a discount code out soon.

BigE

They have one for crew members. Talk to them when ordering.

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