Monday the 1st of March, 2010
We are having a spring thaw of sorts. Still some snow piles at the marina. But, warmer. It was so warm I decided to urn-winterize the heat pumps on the boat. Getting ahead of myself. I've missed informing my Internet friends that I got the 4/0 cables for the inverter and a separate shipment for the 4/0 cables for my new battery switch. I connected all of the cables on Friday 2-26-10. That trip went well. The 4/0 cables are massive and will offer zero resistance at their 3' lengths. I installed a 4/0 connector cable with a 300amp fuse to connect the two 6volt golf cart batteries for the inverter. While wiring the 120 inlet connection to the inverter I discovered that the inlet connector was badly cracked and needed replacement. Of course I could not get the Hubble replacement and had to settle for a Marinco replacement from West Marine that would require drilling the holes a little larger to fit the Hubble chrome cover. I tried online and could not find a Hubble replacement either. Oh well, "just modify" should be every boaters creed.
Anyhow I got all the 120VAC and 12VDC cables and connections working and the inverter is almost invisible in the electric sense. If the shore power is connected, then the inverter keeps its battery charged. If you unhook the shore power the inverter takes over automatically and nothing even blinks.
On to wiring the new battery switch. Same huge 4/0 were specified by BlueSea for the "ADD A BATTERY SWITCH" from the house and starting batteries to the source side of the switch. I used #2 wires and terminal mounted 150amp fuses from the same batteries to the BlueSea "120 AMP 7610-SI-Series Automatic Charging Relay" I used 1/2' pipe clamps to secure the battery cables to the bulkhead for nice cable management.
Now this brings us up to yesterday March 1, 2010 when Susan and I went down to change a couple hoses. I'm still perplexed over whether to remove through hull fittings I may never use again. The salt water faucet hose was awful. Looked like it had been there 30 years. I first could not cut off the seacock to the hose. I had tried to move the handle that had probably NEVER been moved from the open position since installed 30 years ago. I found if you take off the locking nut and then back off the nut next to the body of the seacock; you can tap the shaft sideways a bit and then the seacock handle will move. It leaks while you are freeing the seacock moving the handle back and forth. Then you can re-tighten both nuts and stop the flow of water entering the boat. I've freed up two seacocks so far this way. Lots more to work on too. So anyhow after closing the seacock, I removed the old hose. The hose goes no where and I suppose I could just leave the empty seacock cut off. But, if it leaks at all, there will be water entering the bilge. I decided to cut off the old bad section of hose. The rest of the 30 year old hose appeared to have been stored in a time capsule with as fresh as day one. So, I slid it on the seacock and put a hose clamp and the hose sticking straight up in the air. I intend to cap it off but for now it extends well above the waterline so any water would only rise to that level. This is what I will do with the other unused seacocks as they take my focus.
Susan and I turned our attention to the heat pump inlet hose. It was awful and must have been original too. Trip to Waldens Marina got me the hose I needed. Lunch at Moo's deli (Lobster Rolls yum) and Susan and I got that hose changed. We decided to un-winterize the heat pump and try out the new hose. The two heat pumps share a single water pump. Upon starting the heat pumps we had surging water and inconsistent flow out of the port side through hull. Usually we have a steady stream out of both units. I checked the strainer and found lots of old gooey stuff (sea nettles) that seemed to be the problem. Susan worked on the strainer basket for quiet some time while I worked on the water pump connections. The inverter has forced me to relocate the fresh water system pump. And, of course the water lines will need to be extended. Susan produced the shiny strainer basket and it looked new. I put the basket back into the strainer and tightened the top back down. Susan fired the heat pumps back up and the water shot out of the side of the boat the ways it's supposed to. Both heat pumps heated the boat up quickly. I then turned by attention back to the cracked hubble 120 V inlet mentioned above. I cut off the nice crimped on connections I had made Friday for the hubble and tinned the wires as the Marinco replacement inlet used straight in wire connections instead of screw terminals. Of course the replacement does not fit flush and I will do a little grinding next trip down to make the thing flush. Next big project is removing the muffler.