bilge pump acting up

[bigups]

Hi, a very odd thing is happening with my bilge pumps. They will not work without the battery selector in the on position. I know they are wired correctly because they used to work with the battery selectors in the off position. It's like somebody snuck on to my boat and rewired it. Does this make any sense to anyone?

Greg.

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: bilge pump acting up

not enough info. How many pumps, what type of boat and how many are using auto/run switch's. some boats have 2 feeds to one bilge pump which bypasses the switch at the dash and is directly wired to the battery this is done on larger boats that live in the water and is controlled by a float switch.

 

[bigups]

Re: bilge pump acting up

My boat is a 28' welded aluminum cruiser. It has 2 bilge pumps; one forward and one aft. Both are on auto/run switches. Both are equipped with float switches. I am assuming it is wired directly to the battery because I used to have power to them when the battery selector switches were off. I followed the wire from the bilge fuse in the engine compartment and it goes to the starting battery selector switch and is connected to the terminal that is connected to the positive side of the battery. I just don't understand why the pumps require the selector switch when they never used to.

Any thought s will be much appreciated Glen.

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: bilge pump acting up

The pumps might require the battery selector to be on to run in manual but they should work in auto with the battery selector switch turned off. Theres a few different ways they can be wired and it can be confusing when the switch says auto as that sounds like it does something when in fact it just means "not in manual" as its always in auto. If the pumps run in manual then the only other test is to either lift the float or add some water to make sure that the pump runs when the battery switch is turned off. If the pump does not run when the float is activated then you need to trouble shoot the float switch (bad fuse or bad float switch)

 

[bigups]

Re: bilge pump acting up

Hi Glenn, thanks for the reply.
switch in off position- dash toggle to manual- nothing
- lift float switch with my finger with dash toggle in "auto"- nothing

switch in #1 position- dash toggle to manual- nothing
- lift float switch in "auto"- nothing

switch in #2 position- dash toggle to manual- pumps run
- lift float switch in "auto"- pumps run

switch in both position- pumps run, same as #2 position.

I have a feeling that my #1 battery is dead due to a faulty diode type battery isolator which could somehow have something to do with the new requirement to have the selector switch on for the bilge pumps to work.

I am heading up to the boat this week to troubleshoot and will post when I get Back.

Greg.

 

[Alumarine]

Re: bilge pump acting up

You might find that the pumps are hooked up to battery no. 1 which as you suspect might be bad.
Might be best to run the pumps to separate batteries once you get it resolved.