Water in the Bilge!

[colmac]

Has anyone experience of the following:

I have a Jeanneau 42 SO DS 2006. Upon engine start up a few litres of sea water arrive in the bilge. Also if motoring this appears to continue as the bilge pump kicks in every 30 mins or so for a few seconds? is this normal?

[MartyB]

One of two or more things is happening.

one that happened to me, is my water muffler, the rubber drain boat starting leaking, and I had all kinds of water upon running, and then a couple of qrts/liters the day after.

another, if you have a dripless fitting, it may be too loose or you do not have the shaft lined up with some vibration, and the dripless fitting will burp a lot, and cause water in the bildge. having THAT issue right now.

Some dripless fittings as mine does, also have breathing tubes so the burping is not needed. BUT, if the tube is put too low, water comes out.........not fun.

If you have a drip type stuffing box shaft fitting, the seal parts may be worn out, you can sometimes tighten the bolts, or you will need to repack the stuffing box. Having not done this myself, I do not know what is involved, but rumor has it, this should be done out of the water. I have heard it can be done in the water, but with much more patience etc.

Hope some of these issues I have had help.

marty

[efitz]

As Marty says, you either have a cooling system leak or the stern gland is the problem.
If it is the cooling system, then either you have a loose hose or a crack in the exhaust elbow or muffler. This should be possible to find when the engine is running. You could also check that the water strainer cover is tight and the impeller cover is tight.

The stern gland is the other obvious culprit. I had a minor drip on this when idling, due to excessive vibration of the shaft. I adjusted the idle speed to 900 rpm and the vibration and drip stopped. Your boat more than likely has a Volvo dripless shaft seal which needs to be burped every time the boat goes back in the water, or otherwise the lip seal at the front end won't seal properly. It also requires some grease under the lip once a year.
Again, if you lift the centre panel under the mattress in the rear cabin when underway, any leak here will be obvious.

[grantgoulding]

I have just had to have my dripless seal replaced (at great cost!) as it was worn however if that's where you are leaking it will be obvious as there will be a pool of water infront of the seal by the start of the engine bay. I suspect your leakage is from the muffler. Check the connections to the muffler (located in the port side engine bearer). Any leakage here will go under the engine bay housing into the bilge. The other thing to check is the complete run of the exhaust hose as it may be damaged possibly.
Grant

[efitz]

dripless seal replaced (at great cost!)

I'm surprised. I thought these things were only about 100 squids to replace (if you fit it yourself). Was it a volvo and how old was it?
Mine is 5 yrs old now and Volvo recommend replacing at that age. However, as it is working fine I don't really want to change it yet if I don't have to.
Did yours develop a gradual and progressive leak, or did it just fail?

(ps sorry to hijack the thread!)

[Admiral]

P

[grantgoulding]

The dripless seal cost £85 however the labour to remove the prop shaft from the the coupling was five hours and to lift boat out of the water, into craddle and then return of course and you have a big bill!

[sailbleu]

Or maybe its just a hole in the boat ?
Just kidding.
You say its seawater .
If i notice suspicious water in the bilge i just taste it , than spit it out of course and rinse my mouth.
I have had a freshwater leak you see , that's why i check it out.
Should not be hard to find the source of the leak , not much places where it can come from.

And grantgoulding, next time replace the volvo seal yourself , its not that difficult.
In fact i'm doing it right now , along with the cutless bearing by the way.

It can even be done in the water ,
Release the shaft from the engine , put everything in place , close the gap around the shaft and hull outside with a plastic bag and remove the seal.
Peace of cake ,.....i think :-)

[sailbleu]

Oh colmac , i forgot to mention , i might be possible the bilge pump is leaking somewhat.
Meaning that the water you just pumped away returns to the bilge and the cycle continuous .
I have the same phenomena in my boat.
Sometime I just lift one of the floorboards and raise the bilge floating-thing so all the water is evacuated.
This way you can really check if there's a leak somewhere.
Dont forget there is condens water coming from the fridge.
And also check the hot water safety.
Again, be sure if its sea or freshwater.
The rest will follow.

[grantgoulding]

I did wonder about replacing it whilst still in the water however we had to lift the boat as the shaft wouldn't go back far enough as the anodes were preventing it. Then we couldn't get the drive flange off the prop shaft even with a puller. At that point I decided to let the yard do the job. It does say in the instructions do not replace the seal whilst in the water so I would not recommend that anyone try that as the consequences could be dire!

[electricmonk]

Oct 29, 2009 20:51:23 GMT colmac said:

Has anyone experience of the following:

I have a Jeanneau 42 SO DS 2006. Upon engine start up a few litres of sea water arrive in the bilge. Also if motoring this appears to continue as the bilge pump kicks in every 30 mins or so for a few seconds? is this normal?

As the admiral has said - its the siphon break, it needs to be serviced.

[mkremedy]

colmac,

Have you checked your engine water hoses? I had a similar leak and found that there were some loose hose clamps on the raw water hoses. After tightening the clamps, the water issue went away.

[mtmilam]

Check the top of the Rudder bearing for water while motoring.

We have a 42 DS and water would leak into the boat and would pool right under the exhaust hose where it meets the engine water exhaust. I thought it was there and put Three hose clamps.....still Leaked.

Finally we tied the boat at the dock and ran the engine FULL Throttle and I had someone go in the back and trace where the water was running down the hull (under bed, under exhaust hose).....guess what??? Dry as a bone when NOT moving. When moving the Rear end of the boat Squats down and it must put pressure or hydrodynamic force on the rudder shaft, because water was running UP the shaft and into the boat. It won't do it while sailing, (rear end of boat is not submerged)

Fix was to put some packing gland around the shaft, held in place with a hose clamp....See Pic. BTW the rudder shaft is not loose at all and the boat is a 2007.....I guess they all do it when motoring at 2600 rpms.....NOW the bilge is bone dry...after a year of trying to track down our last little leak.

[dnickj]

well i would go for the siphon break first - the easiest to check - had the same problem with mine - water just drips out of the end of the tube which on my 40 is next to the engine raw water inlet seacock I strip and clean the valve evry few months

[iseath]

Sounds like worn shaft and/or shaft seals in the waterpump. Feel underneath the impeller housing and see if its dripping - it'll get worse with the engine running. Does it stop when the engine intake seacock is closed?

[leecondell]

I can almost guarantee you that the cause of the leak is the elbow at the rear of the exhaust box. Use a torch and from the aft access panel view down the slot that the exhaust hose follows into the elbow in the exhaust box. I'll bet if you run the engine you will see water streaming here. Contact your dealer to submit a warranty as the factory are now using an exhaust box with a metal thread insert for the elbow. The problem is caused by the plastic thread on the standard exhaust box elbow stripping.

[pw121161]

I am the happy new owners of a Jeanneu Sun Odyssey 32 legende fm 2005.

i have similar leakage from my 'black jack'' volvo lips . tried to grease it away which fixed the problem when motor running but shaft idle. but when prop running its stil leaking. Local Jeanneau expert says better change the Black Jack

Second problem was caused durng winter - apparantly i didnt
get rid of all f.water in the water heating system and now the frost made small leakage. Sems no big deal but access to the water heater is very narrow.

when my bilge pump is pumping out after about 10 mins approx 1 liter is ''runing back'' into the bilge - i beleive it comes from the pipes.

[MartyB]

pw,

I have the same issue with about a liter left. this is abot the amount that is in the uphill part of the pipe that goes from the pump, to the just under the deck exit point of the bilge pump. Gets kinda frustrating to see the bilge empty, pump not pumping, then turn the pump off, water flows back into bilge from the hose. I sometimes wonder if it would not be worth putting some kind of check valve behind the pump, such that water will not run back down thru the pump. For those where you have the boats on the hard in the winter, you would have to remember to remove the valve so this area does not freeze........

marty