Ballast Issue, filling by themselves?

[Msajecki]

I have a 2005 Air Nautique 226, it's a 2005 and I just picked it up last week.

I ran the boat for about 25 min today, when pulling into my dock, I noticed that the port ballast gauge said it was full and the starboard ballast read at 3/4 full.

I never turned them on to fill them.

In the engine compartment, the valves are turned to closed. I checked them again a pad they seemed really, really hard to turn. Could the valves be bad?

Could they fill by themselves just by running the boat and never using the pumps to fill them?

It appears that the previous owner disconnected the levers under the steering wheel that close up the ballast.

I'm new to a boat with ballasts, so I'm not entirely sure how they work.

[swatguy]

Very very very common problem. There are numerous threads here on that issue. Replacing the valves cures the issue. Nautique I believe changed vendors on the actual valve to fix the issue. If you do a search therr should be a few threads that walk you through it.

[Msajecki]

Went through all the posts, seems to make sense.

I'm also noticing that my Bilge runs longer than I think it should. A 20 minute ride around the lake requires about 90 seconds to clear the bulge. Would the Flow Rite valve issue leave water flowing out of the ballasts as they fill up?

Remember, the helm controls appear to have been disconnected.

[Msajecki]

Also, could the main control valves be bad? I've turned off the valves in the engine compartment, yet the ballasts are still filling.

[NautiqueJeff]

Take a little while and read through this. This will answer any questions you can think of.

http://www.planetnautique.com/vb5/fo...ballast-valves

[swatguy]

Water could be entering through your lacking seal( the seal around the prop shaft where it enters the boat) while it's running and in gear see how many drips you get. Should be 5 drops a minute or less. If it's more than 8-10 you need to tighten the packing nut.

[Msajecki]

Ok, read through everything. Seems like a well known issue.

However, I don't really see much info on the manual valves in the engine compartment. How hard is it to replace them? Frankly, I will never need to add ballast to my setup. What's my easiest way of plugging up the intake to the ballast?

[fb_rider]

You should hard shut off valves, at least my 2004 SANTE does. I did put in the new valves supplied by Nautique and they seem to work well. I've had them since I bought the boat almost 5 years ago and finally got around to it.