Rebuild Whale Gusher 10 or toss?

[Calypso52]

We have a Whale Gusher 10 mounted on a bulkhead. It came with the boat and we left it in during the refit, primarily to satisfy insurance survey types. I have no idea how old it is. Guessing 20 years plus, perhaps as old as the boat 35 years. It has not worked while we have owned it.

We have two electric pumps, one primary, and one large capacity backup which are both triggered automatically. I also subscribe to the scared-man-with-a-bucket pump as being way better than a small manual pump.

However, I decided to take it apart and ordered a rebuild. Yeah I know, way too far down the To Do list....

The inside is below. All the paint flaking off and mega aluminum corrosion. This pump is $200 plus. The rebuild kit $45. It does not appear to me that I could ever get this cleaned up sufficiently to make the discharge flapper (the one on the right) seal sufficiently to get the pump to prime. The head is about 4' above the bottom of the bilge.

So unless one of you has done a successful rebuild of one of these, I'm inclined to toss it and get either a replacement or one of the less expensive Whale models. Any recommendations on the latter?

Thanks, folks!

[Celestialsailor]

Well...If it means anything to you...I'm a Machinist and pretty accomplished at rebuilding things. I had one of those and tried rebuilding it but being aluminum, it was corroded almost beyond belief. That and the price of a rebuild kit prompted me to buy an all plastic bilge pump.

[TheOffice]

rebuilt 2 of them, but neither was quite that nasty. Looks like you are missing the flap completely. It is salvageable.

[zeehag]

rebuild it as you never know when you may be praying to wherever that you should not have ridded self of such a deserving manual bilge pump......is some faster than a bucket.....

[Boracay]

The pump on my LAVAC (Henderson Mk V, similar to whale?) kept on getting less and less efficient.

Since I really needed that pump to work I ordered another complete pump.

When I took the original apart I became clear that it was not going to be rebuildable in any reasonable time frame (don't ask...).

So for all the trouble of removing the pump and replacing hoses, clips etc. why not put up the extra ponies and get something new and reliable?

And if the original was used to the point where it got corroded out you might actually find yourself using the pump in anger one day.

If it's mounted out of the sun I'd be tempted to get a plastic pump.

[Jim Cate]

I've had a number of those pumps over the years and they ALL suffered corrosion like that. You can indeed put new bits in, but the corrosion goes on and they often fail to prime when needed. I'm not a fan of plastic, but in this case the aluminium just fails to survive well enough to be an acceptable emergency device.

Our manual pump is now a big dual-acting plastic job...

Cheers,

Jim

[Ziggy]

Aluminum is just not a very suitable material for a bilge pump. Gusher Titan is all plastic and rated at 28 gal/min vs 17 gal/min for Gusher 10.

[model 10]

I would be glad to toss ours but what do you put in it's place? Another big plumbing, mounting hole, painting project etc to change to something else would be OK but I don't think there is another pump that would be easy to install in it's place. They did have a pretty nice handle socket.

[Ziggy]

Originally Posted by Guy

I would be glad to toss ours but what do you put in it's place? Another big plumbing, mounting hole, painting project etc to change to something else would be OK but I don't think there is another pump that would be easy to install in it's place. They did have a pretty nice handle socket.

You should check if the Gusher Titan will fit as a drop in replacement. I was able to replace an old Henderson with the Titan and only had to drill two additional holes.

[Greggegner]

Rebuild it, I did mine, just make sure you get the oil resistant diaphragm.

[onestepcsy37]

i'm with ziggy.

when i bought my boat 8 years ago it also had an aging whale gusher - looked a lot like yours. didn't even consider rebuilding it. bilge pump is much too important to save a buck on. i put a whale titan in it's place - don't think i had to make any (or many) changes to get it to fit. been using it these past eight years. i found a rebuild kit for it in a boat flea market, keep it as a spare, haven't had to rebuild the titan yet...

[Custom30]

Put the kit in mine, easy, and it pumps like new.



'

[rebel heart]

I really try not to be the guy on here that says "Well you know what you should do is..."

So instead I'll just say that a large capacity manual bilge pump is important to me. I have the Edson 1-gallon-per-stroke portable unit that we keep tucked behind the companion way steps.

[Weyalan]

I had a Whale Gusher like the one shown... equally corroded. In my opinion it wasn't worth trying to repair. I bought a similar capacity plastic pump.

[Celestialsailor]

The problem with these aluminum ones is they coat it with Strontium Chromate Epoxy but as a little salt water will always sit in the lower part of the pump. Even though it is epoxy, the salt water will eventually migrate through to the aluminum. Much like an aluminum mast with enamel over epoxy.
I have replaced 2 of them in 2 different boats. Both I tried to rebuild and even had to try and build up the corroded sealing areas with epoxy/cabosil.