1987 Champion bass boat live well problems

[pher88]

I have an '87 Champion with dual live wells. My problem is that I cannot get the front live well to fill. I have tried all the switches in all the positions and opened and closed the valves but only the rear live well will fill. I tried letting the rear one fill and then tried filling the front and yet again still no water to the front live well. I finally decided to pull the fuel tanks out and have a look. I have two live well pumps in the bilge and determined which one was suppose to fill the front live well by which one was activated by the switches on the front of the boat. I backed the boat in the water (tanks still out) and turned that pump on and it started filling the rear live well instead of the front. I turned on the switch on the dash for the rear live well and the flow of water increased. Again I completely filled the rear live well to see if it would for some reason fill the front off of the overflow but it did not. I went back to the shop and removed the hose from the front pump that is for bringing in fresh lake water and I connected my garden hose to it and put a little head pressure on the pump and then hit the switch and it started filling the front live well. I put the plumbing back together, drove back to the boat launch and backed into the water and turned the pump on and it started filling the rear live well again!!! What am I missing here? As far as I can see with the plumbing I don't see where the two live wells are connected. Also why did it fill the front one when I had the garden hose connected to the pump and didn't put a drop of water in the rear live well but when I back it into the lake the same pump started filling the rear tank.



Any help will greatly appreciated!

Thanks, Chris

 

[Cusefan78]

Do you have flow rite valves? If so sometimes the valves go bad. If you only have one fill pump the three way valve needs to switch to the front well

 

[gm280]

pher88, :welcome: to iboats. Nice for you to join us..

I read you thread and my opinion is, it seems like the time to redo all your live well pump and hose fittings. With the issues you've posted, I would most certainly be rerouting everything to work like you want it to work. Verify the pumps are good and working properly and then reroute the hoses to allow them to fill when you flip the appropriate switch. Probably not what you wanted to hear. But absolutely the best thing you can do presently for no future problems in my opinion. I also would remove any and all valves and install the fill and drain hoses direct to each live well. Then there are no possible valve problems to worry about ever again. None of that is hard to do and taking the time to do it now will certainly pay off down the road with zero problems... JMHO!