Remote water strainer

gtmoore

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Hi

Whilst motoring back up Southampton Water against wind and a strong tide on Saturday, my engine overheat alarm came on. This was weed in the strainer (again) and due to the inaccesibility of my filter arrangement I'd like to fit one in a more convenient location and where I can see if it's blocked.

I currently have the column type of strainer attached directly to the raw water seacock. The actual skin fitting doesn't have an external grill like a heads inlet. I assume this is to allow you to use a rod to clear any obstructions. Is it acceptable to just take out the existing strainer and fit a length of hose to a vetus type remote strainer? What's to stop the hose becoming clogged up before the filter or can I only use this type if I have a grill on the skin fitting.

Thanks for any advice.
 

tcm

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er nothing would stop it getting blcoked with no grille on the inlet, tho of course, a plastic bag might become stuck under the grille but best i think would be grille skin fitting (Aquafax at ensign Business park in hamble have loads in the shop) and then stopcock, then pipe (better than hose) to some form of seethru inlet strainer if poss.
 

brianhumber

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As tcm has said without a grille you get weed and possibly plastic into your system.

Its a personal preference but I have what you suggest, no grille, seavalve is the ball type, tube up to a Vetus clear strainer just above waterlevel.
Most weed gets trapped in the strainer were I can see it and its easy to spin off the lid dump the weed put and you are back in business in less than a couple of minutes.
Twice in 10 years a big wodge of weed has jammed in the bottom of the sea cock. I have a old coathanger handy, undo the clips ,pull the pipe off the sea cock and push the weed out smartly shutting the valve as the coathanger is removed - less than a cup full of water into the engine bilge and again only a couple of minutes - its bit like pushing out large wedges of toilet tissue from a blakes taper sea cock half way across the channel!!.

Brian
 

gtmoore

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Thanks tcm and Brian for your advice. I think I will fit a remote strainer now and see how it goes and look into the possibilities of changing the skin fitting at next haul out (I think it's glassed in). What's putting me off a bit is a friends Snapdragon I recently helped scrub had wire worm encrustations that had virtually blocked his grill type skin fitting. He was (unsurprisingly!) suffering overheating problems so I'd certainly look for one with quite wide gaps!

Cheers
 
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