440: Newly Purchased 440 2006

[solecollector]

Hello all -

I have just purchased a L440 2006 (95) from St Pete (name was Movin'on and now is BlueSole). We spent a lot of time figuring out which brand / size and finally the exact vessel. We love her - the previous owners were in their 80's and managed to sail to the Bahamas on a yearly basis. As you could imagine - they were characters! Strong people.

Okay - enough of the good stuff - now for the questions - an man - I have a bunch...!

1. It looks like I have two Italian bilge pumps below each of the stairs. How do you turn them on? I see the switch on the fuse panel - and they are both on - and I lift the lever - neither work. Now to make things a little more interesting. The port hull has an aftermarket (like a simple one that you can buy from West Marine). And it works - and I have a feeling they might have ran it out the whale tail...?? Anyway - I just can't flip on the bilge pumps. One had a lot of water in it (the starboard side that didn't have the little bilge pump). Attached is a photo of what I thought was the "big" black bilge pump.

2. The starboard engine was running hot. Of course I couldn't tell how hot until the alarm went off and I went down and checked the water temp gauge on top of the wooden engine covers. I dove in the water and found tons of growth on the SD intake. Is this normal?

3. What do you guys use to clean the windows outside?

More soon if you guys are up for it!!

Thanks - Steve

[2Wind]

Firstly, welcome. I hope you continue to enjoy your 440. There is certainly a lot to come to tems with at first.

In any case, from the photo, it looks like you have the factory arrangement. Hopefully you have the owner's manual? In any case, there should be two bilge pumps in each bilge. I think you'll find a submersible pump with a float switch down in the depths of the bilge. You can see its drain pipe running east west in the bilge in your photo. This is usually not manually switchable, but nevertheless should be operational in demand mode if the water level is high enough to trigger the float switch. You can lift it up by grabbing the pipe, and check that there is no major debris in the housing/filter.

The big black pump at top left is manual and switchable from the flybridge assuming the circuit breakers are set to on. You should check firstly that the breakers are on, and then look to the left of the steering wheel on the bridge deck for two rocker switches that manually operate the pumps. I just leave my switches in the on position and operate the manual pumps from the electrical board, so that I can hear them operate and I also listen for the sound of then sucking air so I know the job is done without having to lift the flooring.

As for the engine running hot, there a several issues to consider. Hopefully, it is only the sea water intakes being blocked as you have observed. Clear the intakes, check the sea water strainers on the forward bulkhead in the engine compartment (left), check your fresh water/coolant levels, and hope that's all. Otherwise you might need to check the impeller for wear, before the heat exchangers.

Also note that on some installations, the water detection sensor fitted to the leg (it monitors for water between the inner and outer leg seals) triggers the same temperature light and alarm. If its not the simple things, maybe get in an "expert" given that you are new to the boat and overheating is a pretty important issue.

Cheers.

[solecollector]

Thanks for the reply! The port bilge pump works perfectly when the switch is turned on at the helm. The starboard one doesn't. I went down to here if it was humming - nothing. I'll put a volt meter on it and check to make sure power is there (the breaker is on).

The engine is still a bit of a bugger. The impeller and hoses are clear. Water back filled the heat exchanger without a problem. And now no water is coming out. Possibly a thermostat? Or maybe there is more clogging up the heat exchange than I thought. I took off the hose from the impeller to the block and it pumped a ton of water into the bucket. I checked all of the other hoses with a water hose - clean flow. And like I said - shot water back through the heat exchanger - a few items came out - mostly minor stuff....

[Lagoon4us]

Hi and congratulations, agree with 2Wind's comments, there's no thermostat that controls sea-water flow so if the impellers haven't been changed for some time i'd change them once your sure you have a clear flow.

When you clean the leg intake crap goes up into the strainer etc so check check and check.

You should get a good rush/flow through the exhaust outlet.

The pump thing- the small whale deals with small flows of water and have an alarm on each in the switch board. The larger ones on our boat are operable from the board manually or the helm, the board ones don't have to be on for the helm ones to operate.

We dump our washing machine water into the hulls so the bilge cleans and the pumps get a chance to push some water....

Good luck, yesterday we were reaching in 5.5 knots at 3 knots boatspeed by the GPS not bad for a boat with comfort!!! You wont be disappointed :-)

[casablanca]

Hi Frank,

Currently North out of Keppel for Island Head, doing. 8 kts in 12 kts @ 90deg AWA with just the assy up. Not bad for a "dog".

Bob

Casablanca L420