Ballast: Manual to Electric Valves

[Nauti 210]

So I have 750s in my rear lockers, center belly tank, and am planning on plumbing bow ballast this winter in my '02 SANTE.

My question is how do you get rid of the manual valves? With the Johnson or Jabsco pumps?

I want to be able to control everything from the helm and haven't really found an explanation.

Any help would be awesome!

[crobi2]

If you put Johnson's or jabscos in there, you will not need valves. For the locker and nose bags you can use aerator pumps if you want because you can put the valves in the locker convenient to the driver.

The 2002 still has the old style keypads right? What button do you push to fill the locker tank?

Most people just add new switches for the impeller pumps because they draw too much current for the keypad to handle unless you use relays.

[shonuff]

From my understanding you have two options if you want to get rid of the manual valves while still using the aerator pumps:
1. Use vented loops and cut the scooper off the inlets under the boat
2. Use electric valves and tie them to the pumps. I've heard of people using sprinkler valves.

[obd666]

here's some good info on installing the electric valves. it works great, and is the easy option for doing away with the manual valves and sticking with aerator pumps ...

http://www.planetnautique.com/vb3/sh...ghlight=valves

[Nauti 210]

Thanks guys for the feedback and link. It doesn't make sense for me to replace half the pumps and still have to manually open the belly tank and bow valves. I will be definitely upgrading to either the Johnson or Jabsco pumps to run my entire ballast system this winter. Any thoughts on which? I'm liking the Johnson with the pre wired pigtails on Wakemakers website. Seems like a nice time saver on the install and the Johnsons are faster GPH than the Jabscos, just not sure which is right for my application. Would love to hear from anyone running either of them.

Next, I assume I can piggy back off the belly tank pump to fill my bow bags? Would this be recommended or should I just go ahead and put another thru-hull pick up in next to the factory belly tank pump and dedicate a pump solely to the bow ballast. FWIW I will be running the stock hard tank in the center locker (~300LBS) and plumbing 2 individual bags in the bow (~250LBS each).

[crobi2]

Is the'02 the one where you have to raise the observer seat to get into the ski locker? If so, I humbly withdraw my suggestion about manual valves in the ski locker for the belly and bow sacs.

With that said, I would not like to cut any other holes around where the belly intake is. It seems to me that that area is right around where the water breaks on the hull and begins to form the wake. I guess Nautique got away wih putting a hole there because the ones I've seen are near perfectly flush with the hull and presumably don't affect the wake. Mounting a thru hull flush is beyond me, so I drill all holes at or aft of the v-drive. ( I may be wrong about all this)

From what I understand the Johnson's are as good as the jabscos. I have the jabscos for my rear sacs and they are great.

Problems people have had with piggy backing sacs is when the sac collapses and seals off air prior to the tank draining and collapses the tank. I think two sacs should be fine. If you do have to piggy back a sac off the tank, I think the trick involves putting in a small diameter hose inside the sac from the fill/drain to the vent to allow some air to pass through to the tank even when the bag is collapsed. There is a thread somewhere about this. Alternatively, you could just pull the center tank and put a 580 locker sac in there also.

[Nauti 210]

Yes, my 02 you do have to raise the observer seat to get into the ski locker, for now. Planning of changing that this winter. I've considered pulling the belly tank, but besides ~280 more pounds of weight is there any other real benefit? Storage? I prefer to run all three quadrants off individual pumps, so I will be needing to add a thru-hull and pump. The question is where.

[crobi2]

Since our boat did not have a belly tank, a locker sac was really the only option. Sometimes I throw the wakeskate on top of it for storage.

Our 2000 SAN only had a single 3/4" thru hull with scoop for the ballast system. I use that scoop with a Rule 2000 gph aerator pump for the ski locker and integrated bow sacs. I ran a hose along the fuel tank to the ski locker then I tee into two hand valves, one for the locker sac and the second for the integrated bow sac. The Rule 2000 makes quick work of filling these.

For the Jabscos, I have a 1" scoop that I originally drilled for another aerator pump. The hole is just behind and outboard from the engine intake scoop (on starboard side). I now have this split to the two jabscos. It is probably best to have a separate 3/4" mushroom intake for each impeller type pump. (if I had it to do over, I would do this)

The consensus best place for three mushroom intakes appears to be approximately between the muffler and engine on the port side in a row next to the ledge but with enough room to operate the valve levers.

On our system, I only use the impellers to fill the sacs and separate aerators (atwood 800s) to drain them. Because the impellers are folded only in this direction, I don't have any problems with the scoop pushing water past the pumps to refill the bags when under way.

[Nauti 210]

That was exactly my plan/location for the new thru hull intake. 1 question though, why if the pumps are made to be reversible are you only running them to fill? Seems like a cheaper alternative would have been to use aerator pumps with electric valves. Is there a problem with the impellers going out when running the pumps in both directions?

[crobi2]

I kind of like seeing the water go overboard when I empty the sacs.

Also, since impeller pumps can run dry, I can turn 'em on and forget about them and not have to worry about ruining anything.

It probably is easier on the impeller pumps to just run one way (in fact I probably could have saved money by just buying one way impeller pumps).

The integrated bow sac has two arms that need to drain, so I actually have two aerators to drain it.

Finally, the Atwood 800 pumps are only $25 at wakemakers, $29 at walmart and academy and can be obtained from White Lake Marine also.

I did have to drill a lot of thru hulls for the vent and drain lines but I got a smoking deal on 3/4" stainless thru hulls so I think they look nice. I put the new drains and vents just in front of the windshield like on the '03 boats.

P.S. I thought about the electric valves for years but never tried it. Some people have gotten that to work. The self priming impeller pumps are worth every cent.