Garage Test

Once everything was complete and cleaned up, I decided to do a garage test and run water through each pump and all the lines to check for any problems or leaks.  Remember the access tee that I placed in the supply line (shown in the pump installation section)?  This is where that comes in handy if you don't like crawling under the boat with a fake-a-lake.  Here's a picture of that again...

To do this test I used a 3/4" female hose thread x 3/4" female hose thread adapter screwed on the end of a garden hose.  This adapter essentially just changes the end of the hose from male threads into female threads.  Tragic if we weren't talking about a garden hose.  :)  Each end of this adapter spins to make it easy to use.  Here's a picture of that part...

Here's a picture of it attached to the end of the garden hose.

Also notice the silver shutoff valve attached to the end.  This is handy for shutting off the water supply without having to jump out of the boat.  These parts will also come in handy using an old garden hose placed in a bucket of RV antifreeze when it comes time to winterize the ballast system.

Here's a picture of the hose attached to the ballast supply line.

I then shut the brass ball valve on the boat's intake thru hull.  This will prevent the water from just going out the bottom of the boat.  I then turned on the water.  I quickly noticed that the water came up through the supply line and to the pump, but the pumps were shut off at this point so the water then diverted out each drain hose out the side of the boat.

I then turned on the starboard pump and the water no longer went out the drain hoses.  The pump sucked the water up and into the starboard hard tank which I had opened the manifold valve to.  I took a look around for any leaks and quickly noticed some spray coming from the Y fitting on the port side.  I thought this was strange at first but then realized the starboard pump was sending water up through the manifold and to the starboard tank but was also sending water out the opposite side of the manifold and back down the opposite supply line because I had the isolation valve open on the manifold.  So essentially the port side hose was pressurized by the starboard pump running.  I simply didn't have my hose clamp tightened enough on the Y fitting.  I then realized that the style of Y fitting I used required a very tight clamp to make it water tight under pressure.  Not a big deal, just surprised me a bit.

Once I had that clamp tightened down and didn't see any other leaks, I shut off the garden hose and turned the switch to the drain position.  I watched the water be diverted over the side of the boat at a fast rate just as I had hoped.  Once the starboard tank was empty, I did the same thing for the port pump and checked everything for leaks.

Since I also used one of those Y fittings for the bow sac, I decided to open the valve to that sac and send water to it to make sure I didn't have any leaks out the clamps on that Y fitting.  Everything checked out good.  I was confident at that point that everything was working properly without leaks so I removed the garden hose, replaced the brass cap, and opened the thru hull ball valve.