Ballast install on a 98' AIR Nautique DD

[mhaaland]

I finally got my ballast install complete for the most part, i just need to buy a bow sac. Thank you to everyone who posted their ballast installs in previous threads, I learned allot from them! Thank you wake_fun, wakeslayer,and many others for your answered PM's, various information and critiquing i appreciated it!! Wake_fun thanks for the help on the 3 way intake manifold it works very well!

[mhaaland]

Here's a few more pictures. I tried to put descriptions on what each picture is but couldn't figure it out so i put descriptions in my Ballast Install album.

[Chexi]

Matt, do you plan to piggyback your ski locker sac and bow sac?

Does anyone know if the drain in the bow (99 and later) empties into the ski locker? That would make piggybacking a lot easier.

[mhaaland]

Hey Scott,
Yes I'm going to piggyback my bow sac to the ski locker sac.
Are you thinking about fishing your ski locker hose up through the bow drain to piggyback your bow sac in?

[wcherashore]

where did you mount the fuse box and pump for the center locker? I am ripping out the hard tanks and replacing it with bags in the trunk in addtion to a bag in the ski locker in my 2000 air...

[Chexi]

Okay, so I re-designed my system yet again, hopefully for the last time. After disassembling the stock ball valve, elbow and pipes, leaving nothing but the stock thru-hull, I realized that my thru-hull is a little further back in than yours (I think), and that it would be very difficult to even get the 1 inch system in there that I wanted. As a result, I'm just going to cap the scupper thru-hull and forget using the motor box area.

So here is what I am going to do (and have started). The center part of the rear locker floor lifts out. There is enough room in there along the far sides of the floor to install 2 x 1 inch thru-hulls and ball valve systems without interfering with the steering mechanism. On the side that the exhaust pipe runs, I already installed the thru-hull, elbow, ball valve mechanism and attached to it a 1 inch T. The T is attached on one of the ends of the T not the middle. I then have 1 straight hose barb fitting coming out and 1 90 degree hose barb fitting coming out. I could also have just used a single hose barb fitting and split with a hose barb T, but I think that doing it the way I did actually allows for a bit more water through-put since the fittings I am using have bigger inside diameters than a 1" hose (i.e., splitting before the hose should give me a little more water volume, which with 1" fittings and Johnson pumps I at least think I need). There is room enough either way, so it's no big deal. The plan is that this side will feed both of the rear bag pumps, which will be mounted very similar to yours Matt.

For the front bags, I really struggled with this one. At first I thought about either tearing out the motor box scupper thru-hull and installing my 1" mushroom, or maybe even just using the 3/4", but then I had the problem of where to mount the pump. I wanted to piggy-back my belly sac and integrated bow sacs, and putting the pump under the driver's kickplate area was going to be tight as it was, but figuring out the plumbing was a nightmare with the pump up there, involving some extra back and forth with the water hose. After thinking about this a lot more, what I decided to do was to put the thru-hull back in that same rear area on the other side of the steering linkage (there is enough room at least for a 1" thru-hull, elbow, ball valve, and single hose barb). This will feed into a 3rd rear mounted pump (same area the other 2 will be mounted). Out from the pump will feed a 1" hose that runs forward along the shaft (but far enough away not to cause a problem) and through the motor box.

There is a thin fiberglass wall in my boat between the ski locker and the motor box. I"m going to drill 2 x 1 inch holes in that wall, one above the other. My belly sac has 2 plugs on the side, 1 toward the top the other toward the bottom. The hose coming from the rear will feed through the newly drilled bottom hole into the bottom hole of the belly sac. Then, I will put another 1 inch "vent" hose coming off the top hole of the belly sac and run through that newly drilled top hole and feed that around in the front of the motorbox up through the same passageway that my heater hoses and some electrical stuff goes through into the driver kickplate area. I already fed the hose through there, so I know it fits. It took 2 people, as the hose wanted to curve, so one person had to feed it, the other had to grab it as soon as he saw it to prevent it from sticking. It went much easier than I thought.

That hose that goes into the drivers kickplate area will feed into the right bottom intake hole of my integrated bow sac. I will then vent that bow sac either through the right top hole on the drivers side or the left top hole on the observer's side (probably the driver's side). This "should" result in the belly sac filling up first then overflowing into the integrated sac until it is full or nearly full, and then vent out the side for overflow. The integrated sac is higher than the belly sac, so when emptying, it gravity should assist in making sure that both actually empty. If this piggy back does not work, then I can pretty easily separate the two and decide which one gets the ballast puppy pump (likely the integrated) and which one gets the manual.

IMPORTANT NOTES. There are some important things to keep in mind for anyone who is thinking about copying the way I am doing this.

1. First, I used West Marine nipples between the elbows and ball valves instead of the Wakemakers plastic ones. The reason for this is that the bronze West Marine nipples are much thinner and as a result have a higher water through-put.

2. placement of the shutoff valves where i put them is not ideal from a usefulness standpoint, because if the sacs are full, getting to the shutoff valves will be nearly impossible without first emptying the sacs, either with the pumps or puncturing them with a knife in a true emergency. The reason I felt comfortable putting them there is that in all honesty, the likelihood of needing the shutoff valves is almost zero, and actually adding the shutoff valves increases the possibility of a leak. Not only are there more fitting connections with a shutoff valve, but the added weight and leverage created by adding a shutoff valve increases the force on the thru-hull, which increases the likelihood it will snap. If that happens, the shutoff valve is beyond the leak and useless. I also have impeller pumps, which are check valves themselves, so if I have a bag leak or a fitting leak after the pump, the pump should stop it. I still added the ball valves for that minimal peace of mind, and because I had them, and because they are protected from accidents underneath the rear hatch floor, but I am not really convinced that there is a net gain from the having them.

3. For anyone who wants to use this area to install your thru-hulls, you have to be very careful with your measurements, not only checking the throw of the ball valve shut-off arm (if you use one), but also the countour of the boat hull, which has some angles down there. You want a flush fitting on the bottom of the boat with your mushroom, and you have to account for the full diameter of the mushroom when picking where you drill. Be sure to turn the rudder both directions fully to make sure you are not interfering with the steering mechanism.

4. If you use shutoff valves, I'm not sure that anything larger than 1 inch will work down there.

I will post pictures when I am done. So far I only have the 1 thru-hull installed along with the rear sacs plumbed. I am missing a few needed parts to finish (some straight quick connects for the bow bags, I got 90 degree angle ones which are not ideal for my setup, and the metal plate to mount the pumps... I may use thick plexiglass if I can't source the aluminum for a reasonable price).

Matt, where did you get your switch mounting brackets? The set of 3 I bought from West Marine all connect together and are just a hair not wide enough to cover that factory hole for the old rear hatch lock.

[wcherashore]

were you able to use the existing thru hulls for vents? I'm hoping they are 0.75"

[Clmsnflyj]

wcherashore,

I know this thread is old but I am in the process of installing a new ballast system on my 1999 PAN and am trying to identify where to mount my puppy. In your pictures, where is your single pump mounted? Is that under the dash? Does anyone have any issues with suction lift on the Jabsco puppies? Do I need to mount these as low as possible? Besides the back of the boat, where are some other good spots to mount?

Any help/advise is appreciated.

Thanks

Tyler