See full version: Bayliner fish well
Any fishwell, live well, storage box, or cooler built into a boat (which has a drain), will drain into a tube that is plumbed to a thru hull fitting. Generally speaking, I have never seen one that drains directly in to the bilge. Boat builders, as a rule, don't want water getting into a bilge on purpose. If you have on draining into a bilge, it was either modified or has something wrong with it. [links]
Livewells drain by gravity -- out the hole in the bottom of the tank and through a hose to a through hull fitting at the transom. Water gets into the tank from the pump. Water gets to the pump through another through hull fitting at the transom. It is then pumped into the tank via another hose. The spray bar acts an aerator when the pump is running. The tank will have an overflow near the top of the tank, or it will have a standpipe that pushes into the drain hole. If you don't know what a stand pipe is, remove the lid from the tank on your toilet. That pipe in the middle is a stand pipe. If the water gets too high it runs into the pipe and into the toilet bowl and out the drain. Same principle in the boat.
Thank you Fireman431 your answer indirectly helped me solve the problem. After looking some more I did find a thru the hull fitting near the fishwell,well above the water line. Since there is only one tube leaving the fishwell and it exits high and since the pump is located at the lowest end of the well, it became obvious that the pump was there to pump water out. Your comment about losing its prime made me try to fill the tube from the outside with a hose. When that didn't work, I remembered that the bildge pump had its outlet fitting plugged by an insects nest. Sure enough after I fished a wire thru the fitting and up the tube, I hit something similar. The pump worked fine after clearing the stuff out. It seems that you have to manually put water into the fish well and te pump only drains the well. My Dad mentioned that people usually just keep their catch on ice in the well and use the pump to empty the melted ice. Thanks again here
My Dad was the original owner and never modified anything in the boat. I wouldn't even call it a fish well if the toggle switch wasn't labeled like that. Its more of a storage box with a pump out drain. I guess if you keep the fish you catch in it (on ice or in some water, you can drain it when the day is over. I guess they didn't drain it into the bilge since you wouldn't want that "soup" in your bilge. [links]
Any fishwell, live well, storage box, or cooler built into a boat (which has a drain), will drain into a tube that is plumbed to a thru hull fitting. Generally speaking, I have never seen one that drains directly in to the bilge. Boat builders, as a rule, don't want water getting into a bilge on purpose. If you have on draining into a bilge, it was either modified or has something wrong with it.
. now. let all the millions of boaters whose wells drain into the bilge start posting and calling me names.
I think I will change the plumbing and go with the macerater pump as well as keeping the inline filter and screens in the holds. I am going to try to do this today so will try to get pics. Maybe the newer trophy's come with the simple 500gph bait/ bilge pumps, but it would take them a week to drain the large holds. more
PS if you have any advice on the pump motor running but no suction,, let me know if I'm wrong in my assumptions and what I can do.
Does anyone know if using an adapter to change the inlet size to smaller than the 1.5" would damage the pump in any way? more
Instead of blowing $100 for a macerator, buy yourself two 120-quart igloo coolers ($52 each) at WallyMart and save yourself the hassle and money. [links]
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