30Tournament

You don't have to change the manifold but why would you not replace it after spending all that money on a new engine? There is no way to be sure of how long it will last. You could pressure test it but that only means it is good or bad right now. Standard practice in the industry is to replace the manifolds and risers when the engine is replaced, and many shops recommend replacing them at two years regardless of whether they have failed or not. Your stbd engine is likely opposite rotation of your port engine. Stbd engine is usually but not always a right hand rotation, but v-drives and counter-rotating transmissions can complicate figuring it out.

I found it an interesting and helpful article. I doubt much has changed in fuel filters since then. Maybe more people are using 10 micron or smaller filters now, otherwise I'd think the brands examined are the same as in 2004. Looking at the marine catalogs, I see the Racor filter I want (turbine type, not a spin-on) is for diesel only, so I'll be keeping my spin-ons until the repower.

Made a recent trip to the Abacos, running from Canaveral to Ft Peirce, OBB, Spanish, GTC and back, maybe 400 miles total. Had lots of fuel contamination issues, not due to bad fuel but from crud busting loose in the fuel tank on my old 1975 ChrisCraft 30' Tournament. Hope the picture comes out. This is a Sierra brand spin-on filter, fits the Merc housing. Complete filter is on the left, opened filter on the right. I always assumed these filters had a large filter element, but note the height of the filter element compared to the housing. The element is not even 2" tall. Time to polish my fuel and think about some Racors I guess, as these are my primary filters. I still think these spin-ons are fine for the average user, but for long distance cruising some larger filters are in order. The contamination was so bad at one point that the filter element inlet became totally plugged. One time the carb filter became plugged also, so I guess the spin-on became overloaded. I'm thinking about repowering with diesels anyway so Racors will be a good investment. Even with all the fuel problems, I was very impressed with this boat (first long cruise on this boat for us). Performance on the Bahama bank in the slop and in the stream was nothing short of amazing. It's a slow but extremely seaworthy and dry boat. I'm so impressed I'm taking it off the market and rethinking my boat needs. Our cruise speed was 17knts max, for about .7 nmpg average with big block GMs, my brothers boat is identical but has 240 Yanmars and he cruised at 20knts and about 1.25 nmpg on the same trip. On the return trip, I had to run Indian Cay channel in the dark with 3' chop. I don't recommend this but we made it just fine.

If you don't have tons of money invested in your boat, you might consider liability only. My 300k liability only is about $400/year. Full policy from BUS was so high the agreed value would have been paid in premiums in about 7 years. Way too high in my opinion. This was a few years ago when rates were sky high from the hurricane claims, they may be lower now.

I've never seen any meaningful difference in marine vs automotive battery cables. Maybe someone sells tinned cables, but I've never seen them. I usually use automotive cables and heatshrink 2" at each end. There is someone on ebay in the boating electrical section that sells built to order cables with Ancor parts at fair prices.

If you go with the Sierra filter, replacement filter costs will be much lower but you won't have the convenience of the drain. I've never found much use for the drain on any of my boats, but I take the time to make sure my system can't get water from leaking vents or fills. If you get water from a bad batch of gas, it will likely overcome your filter before you notice it in the drainable bowl anyway. But if you have existing water-in-fuel problems, I'd go with the drainable bowl Racor.

If you are having this bogging/stall issue as soon as you reduce the RPMs, I don't believe you have an air leak. It would take time to run the fuel out of the carb before the leak became apparent. I think you may need to rebuild your carb or at least blow out the idle circuit. To be sure of eliminating the air leak possibility, you could bypass the ws temporarily, pull the fuel lines off the filter housing and join with a double-ended hose barb and clamps, then see if the problem still exists.

I made my own recently with a standard bilge pump float switch wired to an alarm buzzer I had laying around. Mounted it about 4" above the usual water level. I hope it never goes off.

I don't think your setup is safe, it likely puts both pumps at risk of not working right. However, if this is really the way you want to go, I think if you placed the y vertical with the outflow at the bottom and with a foot or so of each pump hose above the y, it would work.

How much pressure and how fast do you need it? I recently bought an Airhead brand pump at about $50 for my 10' inflatable and it blows up in maybe about 3 minutes. You can get these in 12 vdc and 120 vac models. Pool/spa blowers are usually built on a shopvac motors and some shopvacs even have an "air out" discharge. They have very high volumes but low pressure.

My Garmin 2010C has the common failed screen coating and I heard the coating can be safely stripped. Anyone know of the method for removal? I think they warrantied a load of these but mine is probably 6 years old.

Fiberglass exhaust tube parts can be bought from a distributor for Centek. I bought some through Lewis Marine. I seem to remember Centek had a nice web site with a catalog and I was able to match up the parts I needed. If you don't have access to Lewis, ask Centek who their local supplier is. Which Pursuit? I'm lusting after a 30' inboard express.

Be careful about hooking your head to an existing fresh water supply supplying sinks if that is what you are thinking about. I wanted to do this on my boat but then thought about possible bacterial back contamination through the water supply and decided against. I don't trust any check valve to protect against this. Macerator pumps come in either standard rotary impeller with grinder or the more recent diaphragm type. The rotary pumps are prone to locking up, so they have a slotted shaft at the end of the housing, and you turn the shaft with a screwdriver to break it free. Install this type of pump where you can access the shaft. The new diaphragm pumps are supposed to be much more reliable but they are pricey, around $250 and up. Water supply to the head is usually 3/4", holding tank to y-valve and/or macerator is 1 1/2" (or just screw the pump directly into the tanks bottom outlet, macerator discharge is 3/4", tank vent is 3/4", tank pumpout suction line to the deck plate is 1 1/2". Use a good seacock on the discharge and double clamp your approved-for-below-waterline hose (same for supply hose to the head if it is below the waterline). Some have a feature to install a lock and this might eliminate the need for a y-valve, but check your local laws Flush your tank with freshwater and pump it out after use to minimize odors.

Just started installing a new fixed mount VHF so that I could have DSC and MMSI capability. This radio has 3 NMEA wires, in, out, and ground. I understand the NMEA in (out from GPS) and NMEA ground, and I know how to connect these to my GPS, but don't get why a VHF would have an NMEA out. Any ideas? No, I haven't finished reading the manual yet..... now that I think about it, maybe this is to pass a DSC call with location to a GPS chartplotter?

I was having a stupid moment I guess, thinking I somehow had to adapt the iPod bottom port to a mini 1/8" plug, but after more thought, I guess I just hook the radio 1/8" cable into the iPod headphone port... duh.