AC Not working

[rcornejo]

Hello Everyone,

Seems like you all were right on the mark. I cleaned out the strainer and the ac worked great. However, the interesting part is that the stainer was not that dirty. I was expecting to find something much worse. However, it worked so good that I almost froze that evening.

Thanks again for everyone's advice.

[Chris & Dale]

Steel Hers is a 99 28 TE and our AC intake sea strainer is intalled in the bilge area accessed between the 2 seats in the Pilot House. I've enclosed a picture, but from your description, it's a different unit than yours.

AC Water Intake.JPG

Regardless, if you're like us in the summer in North Carolina, you use your AC almost all the time at the dock, so routine cleaning is required. I can access ours from the top, so after closing the sea cock, I open it, remove the strainer for cleaning on the dock, use a toilet brush I bought at Walmart that fits perfect to clean the bowl, vac it out with the shop vac, clean and reinstall the strainer, gently open the sea cock to fill up & then close, reinstall and tighten down the top, open the sea cock all the way, and turn the unit back on.

AC Intake Check Valve.JPG

Also, having experienced too many air pockets from this procedure, I installed an in-line check valve (brass fitting) to prevent the water being sucked back when the system is open. It works fantastic, even when I forget to close the sea cock before departing the dock, which acted to suck the water back when underway. Pic enclosed.

Good luck w/sorting it out.

[rcornejo]

Hi Chris and Dale,

Thanks so much for the great pictures. Your stainer is very different than mine. Mine is a white plastic cup that simply screws on. I am very curious about the brass in-line check valve. How does that work to prevent air locks? It looks like you installed it in front of the pump. Do you have the model number and the name of the place you bought that?

Thanks for your help.

[Chris & Dale]

I really like our version of strainer with the clear bowl as I can simply shine the flashlight into it and immediately tell the condition. As for the in-line 5/8" swing check valve I bought it at a local hardware store for about $6. What was happening was actually two-fold. 1st, when I'd close the intake and open the strainer all the water from the pump back to the strainer would drain back down so I pushed a lot of air into the pump when starting. With the check valve where it is I keep the pump and that section of line full of water, so when I open the sea cock it fills back up to the check valve so when the pump starts there are no big air pockets. 2nd, if I forgot to close the sea cock before leaving the dock after turning off the A/C then it would act like a vacumn and suck the water back down from the pump, again leaving a big air pocket. Essentially, I made it "Chris proof"! My only concern upon initial installation was would there be enought pressure to open the check valve or would it restrict flow at all. No problems what so ever. It was well worth the $6, hose clamps, and 1/2 hour to install. Good luck.

[DougSea]

On the subject of air locking the pump and cleaning. I was having some problems early on with the system I installed on our 28. Getting tired of trying to get it to prime I installed a tee after the filter and took another tee off of my raw water wash down cockpit feed. If I wanted to flush the filter and the intake I'd leave the seacock open, open the valve from the wash-down feed, and turn on the wash-down pump. Voila, backflushed system!

At startup in the spring I'd leave the seacock closed, start the wash-down, then open the seacock and close the washdown valve. No airlock issues after that.

I also used this to winterize the system by pulling the feed hose from the wash-down pump off of its seacock, sticking it in a bottle of anti-freeze, and turning it on. Winterized in 20 seconds!

This whole thing worked really well and I've got plans to do a similar install on the 35.

[rcornejo]

Thanks Doug and Chris,

Great advice. I often forget to close the valve and have the same problems. I wil work on it this winter and keep it from air locking.