J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Bilge Pump Lines

My Bilge pump isn't drawing properly, and I can hear air hissing at various points in the line. My line appears be in several parts rather than one continuous line. The portion of the line runing from under the engine mount, under the floor to the bilge is tightly fused in and I can't get any sort of leverage to pull it out. I am thinking of running a thinner gauge hose through the existing hose into the bilge and the coupling the ends with original gauge hose but am concerened with the effect on the performance of the bilge.

Has anyone else had this problem ?

Phil - I had the same problem. I've installed hard walled white sanitary hose and fed it through the old gray hose that is in the vermiculite. I cut off the old hose as close to the vermiculite as I could. I feed a stiff wire through and attached a rope, then tied the rope to a tab I cut on the hose and used lots of soapy water to lube the outside and pull it through. This picture shows the center bilge section after the hose was installed, before sealing the edges.


The picture below shows the area around the hose sealed. I used West Systems epoxy mixed with fairing compound and microfiber so I can chip it out easily when I want to. I needed a transition joint at both the pump end and at the bilge pickup. You can see the transition in the photo below.



I figure the performance is better than no pump at all!

Thanks Bill, I hadn't thought about the need to lube the new hose to get it through the old one. I was thinking of using smooth sided tubing to run through the old hose rather than the ridged hard walled tubing that I will be using for the rest of the line.

I like this solution to the problem. What is under the fixed floor board section just forward of the engine? Aside from some tricky woodworking, would it be hard or not possible to open a section of this part of the cabin sole and make a removeable floor board for future access and be able to replace the whole bilge pump hose? Sam