SSLXi Ballast Plan

[jetskipro550]

I have been having priming issues, and changing my pumps out seem to be the easiest fix. I want to add new simer pumps like WG did with her sacks, but I still have some questions. My switches are on-off-on and I believe they are rated at 20 or 30 amps but I can't remember. I want to fill and drain out of the same location (so I would run the pumps in reverse to drain) but I also don't want to have to worry about the sacks emptying/filling on their own. I have ball valve shut off before the pumps so if worst case scenario I would just have to open up the engine cover and shut the valve to prevent water from draining/filling when I didn't want it to.

1. How would I wire up the pumps to run in both directions?

2. How far away from the water inlet can the pumps be? I was thinking in the trunk?

[WakeGirl]

I have been having priming issues, and changing my pumps out seem to be the easiest fix. I want to add new simer pumps like WG did with her sacks, but I still have some questions. My switches are on-off-on and I believe they are rated at 20 or 30 amps but I can't remember. I want to fill and drain out of the same location (so I would run the pumps in reverse to drain) but I also don't want to have to worry about the sacks emptying/filling on their own. I have ball valve shut off before the pumps so if worst case scenario I would just have to open up the engine cover and shut the valve to prevent water from draining/filling when I didn't want it to.

1. How would I wire up the pumps to run in both directions?

2. How far away from the water inlet can the pumps be? I was thinking in the trunk?

1. Your current switches won't work. You'll need 3-way switches with the center being off, above & below that position activates whatever you're powering. This schematic should be what you need. Just wire the switches this way & it will reverse the polarity to the pump on one side of the switch (making it run in reverse). This was how I did one several years ago & it worked great.

2. I would think that would be fine. In the boat that I did a reversing system in, the inlet was the plug under the engine but the pump was back near the trunk. Using bigger line like 1" will help with that IMO. You can buy a single fitting that is a 1" barbed (for the 1" ID line) with a 3/4" male threaded fitting that will screw right in to those drain plugs in the hull of the boat. Take it further & buy a 3/4" female coupler to put that same fitting on the pump, & that will be a good intake system up to the pump. I'm not sure what sacks you're using, but I would imagine that you're limited to 3/4" line, so you can make the switch to that size on the other side of the pump & take that to the bag.

For the shutoff valve, I do like to have one as close to the pickup as possible (just for emergency sake), but you could put another one closer to the bag just for convenience sake. Having to open up the engine cover each time is a PITA IMO, so if you put one somewhere closer to the bag that's easy to reach it would save you the trouble.

One more thing, I can't remember if you're using a vent line. If not, you're really going to need to watch your bags because these pumps do have enough HP to pop your bags. So be careful with that. If you can use those thru-hulls for venting, that would be a good idea IMO.

[jetskipro550]

That wiring diagram makes no sense to me??? Also, my switches are 3 way (aren't they, on-off-on)?

[ffdawg]

That wiring diagram makes no sense to me??? Also, my switches are 3 way (aren't they, on-off-on)?

Patrick,

Can you be more specific about your pump-priming problem? As you know, I'm looking to do a similar setup in my boat and would like to learn from your experiences. I was ready to order my pumps, but would like to hear about your issues before I do.

Also, why did you say that you didn't really need the overflow/vent lines? Thanks.

[jetskipro550]

That wiring diagram makes no sense to me??? Also, my switches are 3 way (aren't they, on-off-on)?

Patrick,

Can you be more specific about your pump-priming problem? As you know, I'm looking to do a similar setup in my boat and would like to learn from your experiences. I was ready to order my pumps, but would like to hear about your issues before I do.

Also, why did you say that you didn't really need the overflow/vent lines? Thanks.

Fill Pumps:

Sometimes they would fill with no problems at all, and other times they just wouldn't want to fill. Or if I was filling and a boat drove by, their wake would cause me to loose prime. To fix these problems I would just drive a few feet away and turn the pumps back on.

Drain Pumps:

These work great until the bags get about 3/4 the way empty. Then the pumps start getting air in them and not pumping. Thats when someone has to lift up one end of the bag to assist the pumps in draining. No matter what there is always probably a gallon of water left in the bags at the end of the day and I have to pour it out over the side of the boat.

Vent:

I saw no need for the vent line as my sacks filled up all the way only a VERY small pocket of air in them. I did notice that the bags swelled up very large before any water went out the vent line.

Draining:

My other problem (biggest problem) was that the sacks would drain 1/3-1/2 the water out while boarding/surfing. I believe the water was exiting through the inlet and outlets.

I was ready to sell off my pumps today and purchase simer pumps, but my dad thinks that we can fix some of these problems. We are heading to Shasta in a month and if we can't get it working by the end of that trip I will be pulling these pumps, selling them, and going through the pain of installing new ones. One thing that I am going to try out is adding ball valves on the sacks (2 on each sack) so that when they are full I can shut off the valves and not loose any water. Also, I am going to look into a way to solve my priming issues, because I know that the pumps are low enough, they are just getting air pockets somewhere.

After playing around with my friends ballast (03 VLX) and seeing the location of his pumps, I think that with some tweaking I could get mine working...I just don't know what to tweak So I am going to spend some quality time trying to figure this all out, and then if that doesn't work its out with the old, in with the new!

[WakeGirl]

Patrick,

Can you describe how you have everything plumbed? I remember that you had spoken of building a manifold coming off of a tee that would go into the thru hull, & if you did that then that's probably part of the problem. Also, do you have the empty pumps screwed straight into the bags?

[jetskipro550]

Patrick,

Can you describe how you have everything plumbed? I remember that you had spoken of building a manifold coming off of a tee that would go into the thru hull, & if you did that then that's probably part of the problem. Also, do you have the empty pumps screwed straight into the bags?

Yeah, I did end up going with the pumps screwed into a T that screwed into the bilge hole. The drain pumps aren't hooked directly to the sacks, but are about a foot away. I just installed 4 ball valves so my problems with the sacks emptying have been solved.

[WakeGirl]

Patrick,

Can you describe how you have everything plumbed? I remember that you had spoken of building a manifold coming off of a tee that would go into the thru hull, & if you did that then that's probably part of the problem. Also, do you have the empty pumps screwed straight into the bags?

Yeah, I did end up going with the pumps screwed into a T that screwed into the bilge hole. The drain pumps aren't hooked directly to the sacks, but are about a foot away. I just installed 4 ball valves so my problems with the sacks emptying have been solved.

The golden rule when it comes to aerator pumps is the reverse of what you figure with the Simers. You want them as far below the water level & as close to the raw pickup as possible.

Okay, based on my own experience with using a tee on a single water pickup like you've got, it doesn't work so good. Here's my theory - you've got a pump on each side of the tee & when you run one, it sucks the other side dry, or at least creates air pockets in the line. That creates problems with air lock for both pumps. The pumps can't pressurize the line. Combine it with having the pumps higher than is optimal & you're bound to have problems with prime. So what's the solution? Get those pumps down into their own thru-hull fittings where they'll be happy. It's really the only way IMO when working with aerators. You've already drilled other holes, so make one more for that plug fitting & you'll be in fat city.

On the empty side, same deal. Put the pumps right into the bags. That's really the best way to do that as well.

[chadellt85]

Not to be a jerk, but........

(Cough) " I told you so"

I agree with WG, you need to put another thru-hole in.

Edited May 21, 2007 by chadellt85

[jetskipro550]

I know what your a saying and it makes sense...but I will try just filling one side at a time and see how that works. I can live with slow fill times, as long as it fills!

[VLXRonnie]

Not to side bust on your thread, what is actually happening when the bags auto drain? Just curious. It seems like you solved the problem with ball valves by the bags, correct?

[WakeGirl]

Aerators don't hold water back so he's either having a problem with pressure from the sack pushing water back out through the pumps, or it's siphoning while under way. Either way, a simple check valve may have worked, but that introduces another obstacle into the system that the ball valves don't do. Unless of course it's draining through the empty.

[jetskipro550]

Not to side bust on your thread, what is actually happening when the bags auto drain? Just curious. It seems like you solved the problem with ball valves by the bags, correct?

Aerators don't hold water back so he's either having a problem with pressure from the sack pushing water back out through the pumps, or it's siphoning while under way. Either way, a simple check valve may have worked, but that introduces another obstacle into the system that the ball valves don't do. Unless of course it's draining through the empty.

I decided to go the ball valve route so that I can move the sacks around once they are full, for surfing purposes.

[ffdawg]

I have been having priming issues, and changing my pumps out seem to be the easiest fix. I want to add new simer pumps like WG did with her sacks, but I still have some questions. My switches are on-off-on and I believe they are rated at 20 or 30 amps but I can't remember. I want to fill and drain out of the same location (so I would run the pumps in reverse to drain) but I also don't want to have to worry about the sacks emptying/filling on their own. I have ball valve shut off before the pumps so if worst case scenario I would just have to open up the engine cover and shut the valve to prevent water from draining/filling when I didn't want it to.

1. How would I wire up the pumps to run in both directions?

2. How far away from the water inlet can the pumps be? I was thinking in the trunk?

1. Your current switches won't work. You'll need 3-way switches with the center being off, above & below that position activates whatever you're powering. This schematic should be what you need. Just wire the switches this way & it will reverse the polarity to the pump on one side of the switch (making it run in reverse). This was how I did one several years ago & it worked great.

2. I would think that would be fine. In the boat that I did a reversing system in, the inlet was the plug under the engine but the pump was back near the trunk. Using bigger line like 1" will help with that IMO. You can buy a single fitting that is a 1" barbed (for the 1" ID line) with a 3/4" male threaded fitting that will screw right in to those drain plugs in the hull of the boat. Take it further & buy a 3/4" female coupler to put that same fitting on the pump, & that will be a good intake system up to the pump. I'm not sure what sacks you're using, but I would imagine that you're limited to 3/4" line, so you can make the switch to that size on the other side of the pump & take that to the bag.

For the shutoff valve, I do like to have one as close to the pickup as possible (just for emergency sake), but you could put another one closer to the bag just for convenience sake. Having to open up the engine cover each time is a PITA IMO, so if you put one somewhere closer to the bag that's easy to reach it would save you the trouble.

One more thing, I can't remember if you're using a vent line. If not, you're really going to need to watch your bags because these pumps do have enough HP to pop your bags. So be careful with that. If you can use those thru-hulls for venting, that would be a good idea IMO.

WG - Like Patrick mentioned, I'm having a difficult time understanding your wiring diagram for reversing the pumps. Could you possibly provide some more detail for those of us who are electrically challenged? Thanks!

Also, I'm looking forward to your write-up on your Simer pump install. I have my sacs and was ready to order aerator pumps and do an install similar to Patrick's but after hearing the difficulty he's been having I'm thinking about just going with the Simers and not have to worry about maintaining prime, etc.

[WakeGirl]

It's been 4 years since I used that schematic, so I did some searching to help refresh my memory. IIRC, what you do is to bring your power in to the center prongs (where it says "from battery"). The top says "from pump", those are your wires that go to the pump. Now, to reverse the polarity so that the other side of the switch runs the pump in reverse, just jumper across the switch to the bottom position in a diaganol, going from positive to negative & from negative to positive. You should be finished at that point, barring the use of any relays (which definitely complicates things when trying to reverse a pump - I have another schematic for that, but if you think this one was confusing.....). Does that make sense? It took me a bit to figure it out & get my mind around it, but it's really very simple once you get it.

I had to order a fitting from Skidim to finish up my system & that should be here today. I'll try to get that finished up in the coming days, but I have to work all weekend on a huge project that is coming together this weekend, so my attention is focussed elsewhere right now.

[yabetcha]

Here's the general idea: not sure who to give the credit to, but I saved the picture from wakeworld or mbo awhile back. You'll need the adapters in the second picture to attach two wires to one prong on the switch as well.

[WakeGirl]

Here's the general idea: not sure who to give the credit to, but I saved the picture from wakeworld or mbo awhile back. You'll need the adapters in the second picture to attach two wires to one prong on the switch as well.

Thanks for the visual explanation, I'm not sure how much sense I made.

[jetskipro550]

2 days in a row of boating and neither day I could get my pumps to prime I basically have 2 options:

1. Replace my pumps with Simer pumps and not worry about prime. However, adding these new pumps would be expensive and a pain (have to buy the pumps, sell mine, re-wire, and put in different location)

2. Drill 2 holes in the bottom of the boat, add scupper intakes (which should force water into the pumps to keep prime). The problem though, is that the threads on my pumps are 3+ inches long so that defeats the purpose of drilling new holes to get them lower in the water. Is there any way that I could cut the threaded shaft shorter?

What should I do? I really want to get this fixed before we go to Shasta in 3 weeks!

[WakeGirl]

2 days in a row of boating and neither day I could get my pumps to prime I basically have 2 options:

1. Replace my pumps with Simer pumps and not worry about prime. However, adding these new pumps would be expensive and a pain (have to buy the pumps, sell mine, re-wire, and put in different location)

2. Drill 2 holes in the bottom of the boat, add scupper intakes (which should force water into the pumps to keep prime). The problem though, is that the threads on my pumps are 3+ inches long so that defeats the purpose of drilling new holes to get them lower in the water. Is there any way that I could cut the threaded shaft shorter?

What should I do? I really want to get this fixed before we go to Shasta in 3 weeks!

2. You wouldn't need scuppers (& I'd actually recommend against it if at all possible) as long as you buy the plugs that are like what you've already got (the ones with the t-handles, Ski-dim sells them). You can cut the shaft to shorten it up, I've done that in the past with pumps & it's worked fine for me. The combination of the 2 would be enough since that's the way that the stock systems are set up. I think that the problem that you're having is that with the tee in the equation, you've got pumps that are pulling more than just from the intake & that's introducing air causing air lock (it doesn't take much). Getting each pump on their own intake should solve the problem. Look at it this way - if the extra plug doesn't solve the problem, you're still all set up for switching to Simers. I'd try that first though, just be careful of where you locate the hole & how big you make it. You need to have enough room to turn the pump to thread it into the plug.

FWIW, the one time that we've had the boat out with the Simers it worked great. I just today finished up the entire project & will be able to do a full test on it tomorrow.

[jetskipro550]

Why wouldn't you use scupper intakes? My thinking, is that with the intake facing forward, if the pump wouldn't prime I could just throttle forward and "force" water into them I have valves on the sacks themselves so accidental filling/draining wouldn't be an issue.

[WakeGirl]

Are you talking about putting another plug in or changing the one that is already there that you're using? The reasons that I wouldn't use scuppers are that 1) they're not needed if the pump is threaded into the plug, & 2) it forces you to use a shutoff valve whereas you may not need it if you just use a normal plug which may be a small thing, but not having to shut or open a valve every time is pretty nice IMO. Using a scupper takes that choice away completely.

[jetskipro550]

Are you talking about putting another plug in or changing the one that is already there that you're using? The reasons that I wouldn't use scuppers are that 1) they're not needed if the pump is threaded into the plug, & 2) it forces you to use a shutoff valve whereas you may not need it if you just use a normal plug which may be a small thing, but not having to shut or open a valve every time is pretty nice IMO. Using a scupper takes that choice away completely.

I will add another hole if thats what will fix the problem. If I add another hole I will put one pump on each hole and cut the threaded shafts down shorter. Are you saying that I don't need an emergency shut off valve if I screw the pumps directly into the holes? The shut off valve that I have is about 2" tall and I am worried that the added height of the shut off valve could keep them from priming. The pump that was put in (by I believe Madrass Marine) before we bought it doesn't have a shut off valve and when I got under the boat and looked at it I can see the the impeller is almost right very close the hull of the boat (probably the reason it ALWAYS has prime)

[WakeGirl]

You can do it either way. I prefer to have a shutoff valve as close to the thru-hull as possible, but I think that comes down to personal preference. From the factory they come with shutoff valves that are right at the plug & are screwed in using a male->male coupler. If you do decide to use a shutoff valve, make sure to get one that is full port, otherwise a standard valve will restrict the flow. But I think you can do it without, or with a valve after the pump & it will be fine.

Before drilling any more holes in the boat, start by doing some basic troubleshooting. If you can, take the boat out & test with your existing plug using both a valve in the plug & pump - if that works then you know that you're golden & installing another plug is the answer. If not, you can pull the valve then test it with just the pump in the plug (obviously not while you're on the water).

[jetskipro550]

You can do it either way. I prefer to have a shutoff valve as close to the thru-hull as possible, but I think that comes down to personal preference. From the factory they come with shutoff valves that are right at the plug & are screwed in using a male->male coupler. If you do decide to use a shutoff valve, make sure to get one that is full port, otherwise a standard valve will restrict the flow. But I think you can do it without, or with a valve after the pump & it will be fine.

Before drilling any more holes in the boat, start by doing some basic troubleshooting. If you can, take the boat out & test with your existing plug using both a valve in the plug & pump - if that works then you know that you're golden & installing another plug is the answer. If not, you can pull the valve then test it with just the pump in the plug (obviously not while you're on the water).

We are going down the water right now (second time today ) but I am not sure if I will be able to do any trouble shooting cause we are in a race with the sun...

[jetskipro550]

I pulled out the fill pumps, T, and ball valve. I cut the threaded shaft of one pump shorter and screwed it directly into the bilge hole. I am going to take the boat out tomorrow and see if it keeps prime and seals well. If it does, I will drill another hole and hook the other pump up the exact same way....keeping my fingers crossed!