Adding bow ballast tank

[jmiller17]

I have a 2013 VTX and would like to add a bow ballast sack under the seats and would like to plumb it in so that it works off of the Malibu launch system, does anyone have Any experience trying to do this, it would be great not to have to throw a  Pump over the side every time I want to fill or drain it  

[oldjeep]

20 minutes ago, jmiller17 said:

I have a 2013 VTX and would like to add a bow ballast sack under the seats and would like to plumb it in so that it works off of the Malibu launch system, does anyone have Any experience trying to do this, it would be great not to have to throw a  Pump over the side every time I want to fill or drain it  

What I can tell you is that if you add the pumps and level sender wiring it should show up in the MLS - because if you disconnect them they disappear from the MLS.  I think that you would need to have a level sender though for the system to recognize that there is supposed to be a pump to turn on.

If you are talking about adding a sack, then would you have a separate drain and fill pump?  Because MLS is set up to deal with separate pumps (or a 3 wire reversible pump would work if such a thing exists), not a reversible 2 wire setup

Edited November 9, 2017 by oldjeep

[mikeo]

You just need a resistor across the level sender wires, I used a rheostat (volume knob) on my '15 to set the MLS level to 50% and then plumbed a reversible pump using a winch relay to fill & drain by bow ballast. There is a thread around here somewhere that I provided some details on how I modified my system, let me know if you can't find it and I'll search for it.