Who'd a thunk?

[chiefrcd]

Well, I should have known. My fresh water pump finally gave up the ghost after a few years of not working so well. It's one of the few things I can actually get on my knees and reach. ( just under the quarter berth). Well, I got it out and went to West Marine to find a replacment. They hand the same brand, same type, same gallons per min. So I purchased it and took it back to the boat only to find that they've wired them differently and two of the 4 holes didn't line up. Well, my 30 min. project turned into a 2 hour ordeal. To begin with of course they tell you to hook the red wire to the hot side and the black wire to ground. My Albin isn't wired with black and red. It's black and brown ( or some shade of grey). Didn't have a tester so I ran back to the store and got on line and did a search here of " wiring" post. Thankfully I found a post where Mariner says, " I'm sticking to black being ground". THANKS MARINER....I hooked it up with black to ground and brown to hot and it worked great. Next came trying to re-drill the holes, which I couldn't see and couldn't get a drill too. I had this very old hand drill that you push on and finally got enough of a bite to get two holes drilled. By then my knees and back were killing me and I was reading whoever invented this the " he ought to be shot" riot act as sweat dripped into my eyes. I finally got it in, hooked the water lines up and it pumps water great. Another boat project done!!!!! and this time I didn't pay someone 75.00 a hour to do it.....

[Pitou]

I did the same thing with a macerator. Psyched, found the same model in stock at the local West. Went to the boat and guess what? They changed the base / what the .... Had to fill and drill. Jabsco ..... what were they thinking? I felt your joy and later pain!

[Mariner]

It's pretty common in boats and cars to use different color wires for the positive lead, while always using black for the negative (common ground). The purpose of this is for identification of the wires. If you know that the wire going to the water pump is brown, you can usually look on the other end at the panel and look for the brown wire to identify it. If there are several brown wires, then at least you've got it narrowed down to several instead of several hundred. In many cars, where electrical systems are planned out to the most minute detail, there will be no two wires that are the same color pattern, so you can always tell what you're dealing with.

[jcollins]

Hey Cheif,
I'm glad I'm not the only one that turns a 30 minute task into an afternoon project.