Bilge pumps and lighting

It was always going to be a busy week but I did manage to get a couple of days work in, I was hoping to be able to get back to outside work but although the weather has warmed up it has been far too damp to even think about painting. I did spend some time scraping the flaking paint from the starboard side of the aft cabin I don't know what type of paint it is but the flakes are white at the front and black at the back, possibly some sort of anti condensation coating, but it all needs to be removed before attaching the lining carpet.

New Morning has two Whale Gusher 10 mark 2 bilge pumps one in the engine space the other in a saloon locker both require attention the diaphragms have gone hard and the valves will probably need replacing, fortunately the service kits for the current mark 3 pumps have the required parts to fit the earlier model it appears that it is only the valves that are different, so while in the local chandlers recently I picked up a service kit with the intention of stripping both pumps and overhauling them. I only bought one service kit on the assumption that at least one of the pumps could be made serviceable. On stripping the saloon pump I found the clamping arrangement for the diaphragm to be in very poor condition but the rest of the pump should be fit for further service.

Clamping bolt for the diaphragm

Clamping nut

Replacement parts

The clamping arrangement is made of aluminium with what appears to be a plastic coating and as can be seen from the photograph the coating had gone and the aluminium nut was heavily corroded. The pump in the engine space was in a much better condition such that I have decided to refurbish both pumps and on consulting the ASAP Supplies website I found that spares are available for the clamping arrangement albeit at a price, it also comes with the two circular plates that fit either side of the diaphragm I don't really need these but it will still be cheaper than replacing the entire pump so I sent an order to ASAP Supplies on Tuesday evening and the goods arrived today, the usual excellent service from this company.

Last weekend the weather turned out to be much too cold for varnishing but I did find some 12 volt led spotlights to fit over the berths in the saloon, forward and aft cabins, six were duly ordered and these arrived on Tuesday so Wednesday was spent installing and wiring them. They have a touch sensor switch which gives two levels of light the first a blue halo night light around the switch and the second brings on the main leds. Unfortunately the rest of the night lighting in the saloon and heads is red but at the moment the saloon spotlights are wired such that they will not operate when the red night vision lighting is in use but this can be easily changed by swapping a couple of spade connections.

Night light

Main light

The one downside of these fittings is that I don't think that the leds are replaceable but given their supposed long service life hopefully at my age they should outlast me.