Engine Bilge Pump Switch Replacement

 We’ve found the engine room bilge pump setup to be annoying. There is a float switch on one side of the bilge and the pump is on the other side. In the photo the float switch is towards to port and the pump is to starboard. There are two problems with the setup.

1. The float switches are unreliable over the long term. We’ve had them fail to turn on, even though they were floating. Their lifetime seems to be two to three years.

2. The float switch is on the opposite side of the bilge from the pump. When the boat is slightly heeled towards the switch it can activate, but the pump is not in the water. The alarm goes off repeatedly. 

Our previous boat, a Vagabond Westwind 38, had a pneumatic bilge pump switch that worked reliably for the 14 years we owned the boat. The sensor was zip-tied to the pump pickup. No false alarms. It was time to change the setup.

We quickly found the Jabsco Hydro Air 59400-0012 online. There are several different vendors of these types of switches and we selected the Jabsco for no particular reason.

Installation was simple. The black box on the bulkhead houses a terminal strip and it was easy to replace the float switch connections with the Hydro Air connections - see the picture. The pressure hose is routed from the switch housing to the pump, where we zip-tied it. It’s been reliable since then and we have dry engine compartment bilges.

We didn't replace the float switch in the hull bilges (yet) as they've not been the same type of problem.

  -Terry

Six Years on Lithium

 We installed our new Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4 or LFP) batteries in the spring of 2015. It's now late 2015, over six years later. What do we think of the upgrade?

At this point we're getting close to financial break-even over buying replacement AGM batteries. The LFP system cost a bit less than $5000 while a set of three Lifeline AGMs would have been $1800. If we had stayed with AGMs, we would have done the first replacement in March 2015. My experience is that lead-acid cells last 4-5 years. Let's say that we took good care of them and they lasted 5 years, so we would have done a second replacement in March 2020. That's $3600 so far.

Cost is only one of the factors. Weight is another, but I can't say that we've detected any difference in Lux's performance under way, so scratch that one. The big factor is the amount of current we can pull from the house bank. We regularly run the microwave and the airconditioner off battery power. Both consume a lot of power - 90A and 120A from the 12v bank, respectively. 

The depth of discharge is the other major factor, which means that we can run the airconditioner for several hours from the batteries. This summer was particularly hot and humid, with the heat index around 100 F in the middle of the day for a week or more at a time. On one week-long cruise, we ran the aircon for the entire trip. There was little wind, so we did have the output of one engine's alternator to supplement the batteries. We were with a group cruise that went marina-to-marina, so we had shore power for nights and to recharge the batteries.

Yes, we also have a NextGen 3.5KW generator that can charge the batteries and run the aircon. But for the most part, it wasn't necessary to use it for the above week-long trip.

What about the LFP bank's current capacity? The bank has a total capacity of 540Ah, so 80% consumption would be 432Ah. Well, we experimented with that by consuming 400Ah at one point during the summer. The system voltage had dropped to 11.8V, still well above the low voltage threshold. This capacity means that we can run the aircon for three hours at 100% duty cycle on batteries alone. 

Success! We would have never been able to handle the aircon without the genset on AGM batteries.

Would we do it again? Yes! In fact, I've learned of some new cells that are about the same physical dimensions and have 50% more capacity, so we could now build a bank with a capacity of 840Ah to fit in the same space. If I could have a do-over, I would use these cells and install high-output alternators on each engine with WakeSpeed controllers and not install a genset. However, as I noted in my Lithium Battery Engineering article, if you're not comfortable building your own system, go with a pre-designed system from one of the established vendors (BattleBorn, Genasun, Mastervolt, Relion, Victron).

Staying On Course: Steering System Compromise and Replacement

 The steering system on Lux has performed well. We’ve heard of other Leopard catamarans having stiff steering, but we were always thankful for a smoothly running steering system. However, earlier this year, we noticed evidence of a problem with the system.

The steering system consists of a drive chain at the helm, which is configured as a pull-pull system with two 9x19 x 1/4-inch diameter wire rope cables to run to the tillers in each engine compartment. The steering cables run from the helm, down to a pair of turning sheaves where they enter a pair of conduits to run aft to another pair of sheaves inboard of the starboard engine compartment. There were a couple of broken nylon fittings where the conduits connect to the bases of the sheaves. The aft end of the conduits was rusted, which expanded and broke the nylon fittings. We were able to retrieve some parts of the fittings and found the Edson name stamped on them. Yay! Edson stuff should be replaceable!

Rusted conduit and broken fittings in stbd engine compartment

Corroded conduit

Since the system hadn’t presented any problems, we waited until the fall to tackle it. Our plan was to replace the conduit’s nylon end fittings. We were not looking forward to accessing the forward ends of the conduit, which seemed to require disassembling the turning sheaves under the helm. More on that later.

We found that some long bolts around the fittings made it impossible to get a wrench into place. At the aft end, we removed the U-bolt that limits the tiller travel. The remaining bolts were short enough to use a wrench. However, we also found that a standard adjustable wrench was too long to fit. Since it was an extra in our workshop, we modified it to fit. The adjustable wrench was a pain to use, due to the size of the jaws. In retrospect, it would have been better to purchase a 1-3/8 inch open-end wrench and cut it off.

Making a short wrench

We removed the cable clamps from the cables where they connect to the tillers in each engine compartment and inspected the cable. Since it had been running smoothly, we planned to reuse the cable, provided there were no broken strands. Well, we found several broken strands in each cable. We also noted a brown, gummy powder on the cables, caked into the strands. It looked like powdered rust. So much for reusing the cables; they were getting replaced too.

Broken strand - there were several others

 We pulled the starboard cable out without too much effort. However, the port cable wouldn’t pull very far before it jammed. Since we’re replacing the cables, a rotary tool with a fiber cutoff wheel made short work of cutting the cable and it slid right out of the conduit. (Tool Tip: A rotary tool - aka: Dremel tool - is valuable on board a boat.)

We really like the serviceability of the Leopard 40. There is an access hole behind a panel in the corner of the starboard aft cabin that allowed us to get to the forward end of the conduits. That took care of our concern about accessing both ends of the conduit. We spent a few minutes with sandpaper to knock down the jagged edges of gelcoat that coated the openings of both the forward and aft conduit access ports.

Remove panel in stbd aft cabin

The access port

We had to remove long bolts around the fittings at the forward end of the conduits. These bolts held the bottom of the sheave bases to the fiberglass. The top bolts were out of our way, so the sheaves stayed in place.

Sheave bolt with nut partially removed

Removed bottom bolts

A bit of work with the wrench on the fittings and the two conduits were loose. The conduits are quite stiff due to their construction. It is an inner sleeve of nylon or teflon plastic, wrapped by a layer of spring steel wire, an additional layer of nylon, then flat spring steel in a spiral, covered by black plastic. The outer layer’s spiral screws into the nylon end fittings. Fortunately, the conduits bend enough to extract them from the access hole in the engine compartment. We left one in place as a pull cable. The other was for our measurements.

Measurements: Conduits: 7ft 9in

Stbd cable: 13ft 9in

Port cable: 23ft 9in

The end fittings are the 3/4” model that’s white.

The chain for the helm is 48 inches long. We already had a replacement section with master links so we didn’t have to order it.

We called Edson after deciding that it was best to talk with someone about or replacement plans. We were directed to Will Keene, who turns out to be the owner of Edson. We were very happy we decided to talk with him. His recommendation was to replace everything. 

https://edsonmarine.com/

He recounted a story about a vessel who was making the trip from the US to Bermuda and had the steering system jam. It turned out that the conduit inner casing chaffed through, causing the stainless wire rope to rub on the spring steel. Spring steel wins that battle every time. The wire rope frayed, locking up the steering system. They tried the emergency tiller, but because the cables were still attached to the tiller, they wound up breaking the steering system. Will said that they eventually made it into Bermuda, but subsequently incurred damage from reefs when they couldn’t steer.

Will also emphasized that the steering components typically last about 15 years. Of course, this depends on usage and how well they are installed. The conduits in the 2005 L40 run pretty straight, so there should be little wear. He highly recommended adding grease cups to the conduits, ideally located close to the center of the conduits. We weren’t going to get close to the center, but figured that being able to get grease somewhere into the cable would be a good idea, so we added them to our order.

At the end of the call we decided to replace the conduits as well as the cables. Fortunately, we had found the forward access port in the starboard aft cabin’s bulkhead that made it feasible to access the forward end of the conduits.

We examined the turning sheaves and they were in good condition with a good coating of grease and no corrosion. There was no wobble and the grooves didn’t show wear where the wire runs.

The control cables come from Edson in 13ft and 26ft lengths. We needed 13ft 9in for the starboard cable. A custom 14ft cable was curiously as expensive as the 26ft cable. Will explained that the stock cables are pre-built in large quantities by an outside vendor using a nicopress crimping machine. A custom cable is done in-house using hand tools, which is why it is so expensive. The result is that we ordered two 26ft cables.

We had a spare piece of chain 48-inches long, which we purchased a while back because of failures that other Leopard owners reported (see link below). Our old chain was in good condition, so we’ve kept it as a spare. If we had not already purchased new chain, we would have added it to our order.

https://groups.io/g/Leopardcatamaranowners/topic/57313145#23761

Our order:

2ea 8ft conduit for 1/4” cable (delivered as one 16ft piece)

2ea 26ft 1/4” Stainless 9x19 wire rope cables

4ea 3/4” end fittings

2ea grease cups (which the original system didn’t have)

It all arrived in a 14x14x6 box. The conduit was a single 16ft piece.

Steering System Order

We discovered that the conduits had not lost any length due to the corrosion. A 4-inch grinder with cutoff disk is the ideal tool to cut the conduit. A hacksaw would be a *lot* of work to cut through the spring steel. The heat of the grinder causes the inner core to melt slightly, which was easily cleaned out with a 17/64 drill bit. A 1/4” drill wasn’t big enough—leaving enough burr that the wire rope wouldn’t fit.

Cut conduit with melted core lip

We measured how far into the starboard aft cabin access port we could reach and put the grease cups at that distance. That was an 18” piece, grease cup, then the remainder to make 7ft 9in in total length. The grease cup was loaded with SuperLube Teflon grease, as recommended by Will. We also applied a thin coating of the same grease to the cut ends of the conduit to help prevent corrosion.

The end fittings and grease cup fittings have a slot cut in them. They are threaded to match the spiral on the conduit. Put a flat blade screwdriver into the slot to open it slightly and get the conduit threading started. Remove the screwdriver and thread the fitting the remainder of the way and clamp with the provided hose clamp. This process worked well for the grease cups.

Open the split in the end fitting with a screwdriver

Once we had the replacement conduit assembled, we ran the new cable through it to make sure that it would fit. One of the pieces of conduit needed the burr of the melted inner core cleaned out a bit more. We also used a file to round off the tip of the cable, which looked like it had melted together when it was originally cut - probably with a cutoff disk like we used for the conduit. Will recommended saturating the cable with epoxy and wrapping with tape before cutting so that it doesn’t fray during installation. The grease cups were filled with Super Lube Teflon (Will’s recommendation), assembled loose, and not screwed down. Lubrication will be covered later in the process.

The new conduit with the grease cups must be installed from the stbd cabin access port. It won’t fit through the opening near the engine compartment. We used an  old conduit as a pull cable by taping the new conduit to the old using packing tape, covering both conduits to 6 inches to prevent them from disconnecting. Packing tape is strong and thin so it won’t hang up on things. A pull cord didn't work as well as the old conduit.

The entire area where the conduit is installed was very dirty and we took some time to vacuum it out. Much of the gunk was old fiberglass and wood dust from drilling and sanding when the boat was built.

We threaded the aft end fittings all the way into the sheave bases and were able to get the conduit started, then threaded the remaining way into the fittings. It was easy enough to thread that grabbing the grease cups from inside the stbd cabin access port worked well. We oriented the grease cups so we could service them and clamped the conduit at the aft end fittings in the engine room.

It was obvious from the old conduit that Leopard cut down the spiral cover on the conduit in order to install it into the end fittings that are behind the stbd cabin’s bulkhead. That leaves parts of the spring steel exposed where it can corrode, so we opted for a different approach.

Old conduit cover cut down - we didn't do this

The end fittings were screwed all the way into the sheave bases and the conduit threading started. The screwdriver allowed us to open the end of the fittings enough to get two turns of the conduit spiral into the threads. The end fittings were then unscrewed two full turns. That covered enough of the conduit for a solid grip while leaving enough of the fitting threads engaged to be safe. In fact, we noted that the end fittings had not been screwed in to their full depth when we took the old ones out.

Fwd fitting with conduit at 2 turns depth

Aft end fittings, with one conduit installed

We fully installed one conduit, then repeated with the other conduit. The conduits do not cross in the run from under the helm to the engine compartment. The outboard sheave under the helm goes to the outboard sheave in the engine compartment.

Both conduits in place with grease cups

Attach the chain to the wire rope and insert the wire rope into the conduits, starting from under the helm. The chain and helm was centered, and the cables were marked with a Sharpie permanent marker where they entered the conduits. We pulled them back into the stbd cabin and started lubing them with Super Lube Teflon between the marks as we pushed them back into the conduit. Our objective was to work the lube into the cables before tightening the grease cups.

Position the wire rope to each side, loosen the turnbuckles to where they are 1/4 engaged and loosely clamp with one wire rope clamp. (The saddle on the clamp goes on the standing end of the wire, following the ditty: Never saddle a dead horse.) Make sure the helm works as desired and that the centerline marking on the helm matches the center of the chain throw. This is the time to check all alignments and end-to-end runs of the wheel. When you’re happy, clamp the cable, tension the turnbuckles to take out any slack, and lock the turnbuckles. We used a rotary tool with cutoff wheel to cut the cable. It wasn’t necessary to use the 4-inch grinder, though that would have worked as well. We tightened the grease cups some to inject some of the grease into the conduit. We put all the long bolts back in place, double checked everything, and the job was done.

If there are questions, please ask on the LeopardCatamaranOwner's list on Groups.io.

 -Terry