Engine Sea water suction valve and strainer

[Capt Kirt]

I have a 1979 -1980 Albin 36 w Ford Lehman engine. I am under going a full boat overhaul and looking at the engine sea water suction valve there looks as though there may be a strainer built into the valve assembly. If there is I need to know and if there is I need to know how to access it. There are many years of paint caked on it. Any help will be appreciated. Thank you

[jleonard]

I replaced the thru hull and strainer on my 1983 40 Albin. There was no strainer built into the thru hull if that is what you are asking.
The thru hull was odd however. It was very large in diameter on the outside and small diameter on the inside. Hence there was a lot of fiberglassing to do before I could install a new modern one.
By the way I went up one size to 1 1/2 inch in thru hull seacock and strainer to make sure the Lehman had enough water.
So far even though I get some grass and debris in the strainer it has never been close to clogging up.
By the way I also added a scoop strainer.

[cdsailor]

There are external strainers and there are internal strainers. Which are you asking about?

An external strainer looks like this and could certainly be adapted to your seacock setup. The threaded portion extends through the hull and the seacock threads onto it. The slotted section is, of course, outside of the hull.



External strainers are not always integral to the thru-hull, however, like this one that simply screws to the hull over the existing thru-hull - they also come in a round version.



I suspect it's the external strainer you're talking about since you mention that it's caked in paint. You'll notice from the two images above that removal of the latter type is less involved than removing the thru-hull with integral strainer. Excavate/expose the fasteners that secure the strainer to the hull, and you're in business. If it's the integral type, you'll have to end up removing and rebedding the seacock and thru-hull.

Our '79 Albin 36 does NOT have external strainers on her raw water intakes, but she does have internal strainers that are a combination seacock/strainer arrangement, and they look similar to this - same design principle anyway: bronze body threaded onto the top of the seacock, removable cap that provides access to a SS strainer basket that can be lifted out of the bronze body for cleaning.



Knowing which system you have will help get the answer you need.

[Capt Kirt]

Ok Thanks for the feed back mine is similar to the combination seacock/strainer arrangement, just wanted to be sure I could unscrew the top before putting wrench on it. thanks again