J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Cooler Drain

Has anyone had any luck in replacing the hose that goes from the cooler drain into the bilge? I am trying to hook up a pump that will keep the water out of the bilge and discharge it into the sink (to try and keep the bilge drier). However, the hose seems to have cracks in it near the bottom of the cooler, but I can't get to the fitting. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Tom

I have not tried to remove the ice box hose but here are some ideas: It may be possible that the hose is removable from inside the ice box but I doubt it. If not, then you will need to make an access hole for the hose. The best place is probably on the panel inside the swinging cabinet inboard of the nav station. Get one of those 3 or 4 inch inspection ports and cut a hole in the panel. That should give you plenty of access to the hose at the bottom of the ice box. And you can fill the hole with the access port afterward.

One question though. Why are you interested in the ice box hose when you want to pump to the sink on the opposite side of the boat? You should be able to snake a hose up the port side and to the sink.

PS - You should really consider pumping directly overboard rather than into a sink.

Thanks for the feedback. I will look into the access port, thats a good idea.

What I am doing is I put a small pump in the bilge that will hook into the cooler drain hose, and I ran the output of the pump up to an extra faucet next to the sink. Then, I just push a button and the cooler will drain through the faucet into the sink. Thats the plan anyway...

Tom, please let us know what it's like when you put the access port in. I'm quite curious.

Well, I finally got into it. I made an access hole under the starboard setee. The drain is about 8" back from the hole. There is also a lot of foam that I had to hack out. But, once cleared out, there is just a simple hose clamp holding the hose in place. The hose on mine had gotten brittle and started cracking, so water was leaking all along the hose before it got to the bilge.

Just thought I'd update everyone on what is there.

Thanks Tom. I've always wondered

Tom - did you ever get the hose out? If so, how? We are trying to replace ours, have cut the hole in the setee side, have gotten the hose removed from the cooler drain, but now it appears to be epoxied where it empties into the bilge. Has anyone been successful in actually removing the hose so a new one can be led into the bilge?

I couldn't get the original hose out either. Like you said, it seems like it was epoxied or just really jammed in there. I ran a new hose along side the original, and hooked that up to the pump. The hose is quite a bit smaller than the original, so that it would hook right up to the pump. So, at the cooler drain, I had to cobble together a few hoses together with some adapters to reduce the sizes and fit everything together. I'm sure it wasn't the "right" way to do it, but it works great.

I ended running the new hose under the setee and into the bilge thru the drain hole that allows any water that would collect in that area to drain. I had to do a little filing, but it has worked well. First I had replaced the hose that will not come out with a smaller one and it constantly got clogged. That is why plan B.

Believe it or not we (or as Rich would say, who is this "we") got the hose out. It had a piece of metal in it we think may be to hold it rigid so it wouldn't move around. That is what was holding it up. Took a lot of swearing, yanking and pulling but eventually it worked free. Of course, running the new hose was not exactly easy either. But it is done and the cooler drains great. So - it can be done.