Tag: Lavac Head

What’s UP ?

Everybody wants to charge for advice; for their opinion, or to peek into their life. Join this, upgrade to that, support me, etc. Everyone wants money, money, money. If you need the money; then ok. If not it seems a wee bit “greedy”—to me.

I’ve been working on the website for most of the last month. Cleaning it up, making sure the code is correct, reducing errors: I hope! 🙂 And it is all still “free”. From cruising years ago we adopted the idea that cruisers support each other. On the site are nearly a thousand photos providing a look into a cruising yacht and the crew’s life on aboard. Over 100 product evaluations from our real world sailing experience. And of course there are dozens of picture stories about major projects we’ve worked on making the boat more comfortable. Some even with instructions. Luckily, we don’t need to charge. What would I really do with extra money? I’ve always said you can get more money but you don’t ever get more time. For me; for us, time is more valuable. It has always been.

That said other than the web site what have we been doing with our time? We We had three projects upper most on our list when we returned from our S Thailand sojourn. First: repair the dinghy. We had two leaks. Second: we needed to replace the Tank Tender pickup for measuring how much fuel was in our new port tank, and the third was to stop a smallish leak in the Lavac Head base. These were actually the priority; not the web site.

The dinghy we hauled up to the work shed planning to seal the leaks. We discovered one under the oarlock that had fallen off. It would be a problem to repair. We didn’t like it. The other leak was near a seam. We use 5200 Fast Set on the Hypalon tubes. It works great but I didn’t like using it over seams and the oarlock area was a real conundrum on how to repair it.

Under Oarlock
Bow Leak

So we chose instead to ship it off to the Dinghy Dr. aka AllStar boats. They had it last year and did a great job on the repair. Our dinghy is getting a bit long in the tooth. We plan on getting a new dinghy next year, but one more year out of old reliable would be nice.

While we’re waiting for it to be returned to good nick again we had our new 15 hp Yamaha Enduro delivered. It is now resting gently on our aft deck waiting patiently to be put into service. All the while we still have the other for sale. Any takers? LOL

The Tank Tender needed a small new connection to the sensing tube. Either I did or the workers in Phuket broke the old connection when removing the tanks. I had called Tank Tender to get a new one; ordered 3 to have spares and they were fantastic in their response. When we returned to the Marina the items were there. With those in hand we set about running some new air lines. For a small project it ended up creating a good mess in the boat. We opened up the panel where the display was. Removed 3 drawers, one set of cabinet openings, two finished floor boards, two floor boards inside a locker and emptied a huge locker with our sewing machine, power snorkel and other gear to get to the last floor board and replace the fitting. After connected we tested the fuel level before returning everything to its correct place. With that completed and working on to the last job- for now.

Results of the Weep

The third issue was the Lavac Head Gasket. It’s weeping, sometimes more sometimes less. I’ve complained about Lavac before. They have a plastic base in which there is a rubber gasket and the ceramic toilet sits on those two. The bolts come up through the plastic and there is a nut on the base. To tighten them one needs to remove the entire assembly and position a socket on the bottom bolt head inside the base while tightening the top nut. In the past I had tightened the assembly too much and cracked the base causing… another leak. It seems over time the rubber gasket hardens a bit and is not really functioning as a gasket. And as I mentioned before Lavac has never responded to me on how much to tighten the assembly.

Ready to Replace

This time I thought, I’ll use butyl on the gasket. So I did. No leak. After two days a very small weeping occurred. Wendy lifts the toilet assembly and I tighten a wee bit more. One quarter turn on the nut. Cautious not to over do. I don’t want another cracked base. Now; no leak, again. I am thinking we will need one more slight tighten to ensure the effluent stays where it belongs.

Ah ha; we have another bright idea. Get Fredrick; the local welder to make a new base out of SS with studs coming up from the bottom so if and when I need to “snug” the bolts down on the rubber gasket it will not be a job with many four letter words.

On to new and better things. Boat work never stops. In between any play we are re-varnishing. We’re working on varnishing the exterior wood before it gets bad, bad enough that we would need to strip it back to bare wood again. All fun! All Adventures in Paradise! And yet I wouldn’t give it up to be driving down I-95 or the M-1. No life style is perfect; however cruising comes close.

Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

Some old enough may remember Gomer from the Andy Griffith show spouting that line. Because I made a mistake – those words are my thoughts.

When we travel we often close off the forward head. Any beating of the waves against the boat spurts water into our forward head (cabin) area via the sink. To be safe I also close off the head (toilet) too. If this is too much info skip to the next paragraph. I used the head and without thinking grabbed pump handle. I began pumping the toilet (there is no handle to flush as in home toilets). Pumping required more effort than I expected. On the second pump I remembered; opps, open the seacock.

On the second stroke I also heard a little squish. I opened the seacock and completed the task of flushing the head. Sadly I still heard a little “squish”. Some water passing back and forth. The squish ought not to be there. There is a small hole at the bottom of the Henderson / Lavac pump to let any fluids out.

I checked and it is a little wet there. Damn! Added to my never ending list is to now replace the head pump. Oh well….. I have another pump all ready made up. We are after all a cruising boat and carry an enormous amount of spares. I have a spare pump, as well as spare rebuild kits. Tomorrow I’ll pull the pump and replace it, then rebuild it in the afternoon at my leisure.

After breakfast we begin. While I could do this on my own having a partner assist will reduce the work time considerably. W/ looks up where the spare is, I dig it out of the locker. I check the pump bolts and tighten just a little; after all it has sat in the locker for about 2 years and I don’t want any leaks.

We begin by clearing out the lockers on both sides of the pump. In one locker there are a couple of soaked items. Those go in the wash. The rest is strategically placed about the boat to create the biggest mess possible. I now begin to remove the pump.

Four hose clamps and four nuts later I have it out. I install the new pump and we’re close to finished. Once installed we get a bucket of fresh water for testing. We don’t love having to clean salt water up. W/ fills the toilet with fresh water and begins to pump. Water is coming out of the screws holding one of the gaskets in

Cracked Henderson Pump body
Cracked Henderson Pump Body

place. This gasket stops water from flowing backwards into the pump. I HATE this design! Three out of four times I have trouble with this part. I tighten up the screws. It still leaks. I get some Butyl out and we put some in the holes and around the screw heads. I tighten down and get a better seal; not perfect, just better. We pump and I’m still getting water around that area. DAMN! I wedge my head in the locker with a headlamp and W/ pumps some more. Double DAMN! There is a crack in the plastic molding in the pumping chamber. Surprise! Guess what we get to do.

A bronze underwater fitting with a hole eaten in it.
A bronze fitting with a hole eaten in it!

Remove the pump, clean the old one, transfer the new rebuild kit to the old pump, put back together and reinstall. An hour or so later we’re ready to put the old rebuilt pump back in service. While I was taking this pump apart W was removing more stuff from the hanging locker where half the pump is. With her eagle eye she sees a drip area that ought not be there and as usual she wants me to be worried too. I check it out. Again I stick my head in the locker with a head lamp and Surprise ! I discover a hole in the bronze elbow where effluent leaves the sewage treatment unit and exits the boat.

In many respects this was discovery is lucky. I don’t know exactly when this hole opened all the way up. Had we not noticed and continued to use the system we would have had quite a few items as well as the floor of the locker covered in ground up, fully treated, excrement. A real PITA and real lucky; all at the same time.

Even luckier still, I have a plastic 45 degree elbow that I can replace the bronze one with a hole with. I remove the bronze fitting; without breaking anything. I seal the threads on the new elbow with silicone tape and add thread sealant to be sure all goes well. I crawl into the locker and install the new elbow. We also have some new hose we picked up in Whangarei so we decide now is the time to replace that section too. I heat the hose end, install the hose, cut it to length and then install the other end on the seacock. I let the hose cool down prior to adding hose clamps. I remind myself to remember to tighten them before testing the system. I also let W/ know to remind me. We can’t be too careful when it comes to keeping water on the outside of the boat.

Back to the pump. I get it installed and the hoses clamped on. W/ adds fresh water to the bowl and we pump. Bingo. No leaks on the pump, a small leak on a joint connecting two hose sections and no leaks at the elbow install. And this time I remembered to check all hose clamps and open the thru hull. I snug down the union and all is right with the world. W/ vacuums out the lockers and then wipes them down removing any salt residue she can. Everything is now cleaned and put back into the lockers.

We started this process at roughly 9 am and without any breaks we finished at about 3 pm. All told, in the end, a good day. We discovered a problem after I created a problem. We addressed it, solved it and everything is now ship shape. And what did I learn? Oh…. when we shut down the forward head I will move the pump handle to the aft head. That ought to remind me before I try pumping with a closed seacock again!

On to dunch. (W/ likes to combine the two into one meal- works for me!)

Go Slow
Sail Far
Stay Long