Metric Piping/ Imperial Seacock!

[Tam_Hazan]

Having spent an extremely frustrating weekend buried in the heads of the boat, I need help.

The problem started with a desire to replace all the inlet and outlet hoses for the heads. The removal was relatively easy if a trifle smelly and ... well you know.

The nice clean hoses went on with some pushing and shoving, and have been suitably clipped. Except for the outlet seacock. After several hours of boiling water treatment, fairy liquid massages, tapered wooden plugs ... the end of the hose only went on by about 1/4 inch.

Any suggestions? Any suppliers of convertors of nearly fitting to just fitting widgets? Oh, and no I don't want to replace the nice Blake's Seacock (not exactly what I called it this afternoon).

Thanks for constructive help,

Tam

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[Heckler]

as far as i know all the major manufacturers use a bsp fitting for sea cocks and in fact thinking on even if it was metric the size was the same just a slightly different thread shape and bsp and metric would screw on to each other. you can go to any chandlery and buy bsp threaded fittings with different sized barbed hose connections on going in size by 1/8th increments.
just buy one a size smaller
s

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[johnwest]

Have you got a straight run at the seacock spigot or are you trying to push a
bend on it ? Vaseline worked a treat when I had similar problems three weeks
ago when I changed all my seacocks and piping.


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[rich]

Re: it will go on

been there n done it,, get a big pan, get the water boiling put the hose in till it goes soft, use a tapered plug with lube open up the pipe let it cool down on the plug, reheat and push onto seacock. it worked for me, ps i felt like you do now at the time i did it.......
ask happy, he's always got an answer,,,,,,dig/forums/images/icons/smile.gif
<hr width=100% size=1>rich ) <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by rich on 14/04/2003 00:28 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[alanporter]

I never did find boiling water good enough to soften good quality hose. I always use a heat gun, (actually one sold as a paint stripper), giving out 1500 watts. This always works and, if the hose really is of good quality, it isn't harmed.

<hr width=100% size=1>Alan Porter

 

[snowleopard]

it's not an imperial/metric problem, it's blakes. they've been making their seacocks with oversize spigots for generations and see no reason to change.

heat, lubrication & patience.

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[graham]

Re: it will go on

I can endorse the heat and wooden plug method.It worked for me recently fitting a pump.

Heat up till soft and tap the greased plug into the pipe. Allow to cool and the pipe stays opened out.

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[rex_seadog]

Like you I have just changed all the hoses but in my case the problem was a sloppy fit to the plastic discharge elbow on the toilet. See my post of 7th April "Leaking toilet hose connection". The fit on the old (1984) Blakes seacock was fairly tight but inserting the end of the hose into a can of boiling water did the trick. Before I learnt this technique I sweated blood trying to From my experience it is vital that the water is boiling and that as soon as the hose goes floppy it is pushed over the seacock within seconds. (Or use a tapered spigot first as others have suggested). The softening point must be very close to 100 degrees. By the way, when I spoke to Jabsco they cautioned against using boiling water as it can cause the plasticisers in the hose to leach out - this may be so but I don't think one or two dips matters and if there's no other way! I had previously cleaned the Blakes spigot with a wire brush and emery paper so that also helped.
In view of our differing problems I'm sure that there must be manufacturing variations between the various makes or batches of hose - mine was the white hose from Mailspeed, Warrington.
When you finally suceed I would be very interested to know if you are leak-free at the other end.
Good luck. Rex

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