Remounting a strum box...

E

ex-Gladys

Well-Known Member
Joined
29 Aug 2003
Messages
5,252
Location
Colchester, Essex
Visit site
This weekend finished with the discovery of several gallons (12 ish?) of fresh water in the bilge. I haven't had the floorboards up in a while (mea culpa) and my tracing activities point to it being rainwater entering through the anchor chain slot on deck. It bought to the fore an issue I've had a mind to address for a while.
Gladys has a small bilge atop the encapsulated keel, which extends back under the engine but has a bulkhead dividing at the front end of the engine to keep all greasy nasties aft. The problem is further exacerbated by the strum box being mounted under the engine, but on a lump of ply possible 3/4" thick, and the bilge sensor is mounted to match this.

So the exam question is can a Whale type strum box be mounted directly onto flat GRP, and if so what's the best method? I'm also tempted to put a second bilge pump addressing the area forward of the engine...
 
I guess a strum box is designed to prevent anything in the bilge being drawn up into the pump and jamming it. Anne Hammick made the point that she would rather face unjamming a bilge pump at deck level than a strum box in the bilge, so never fitted them. Of course she was dealing with robust manual pumps.

I would be tempted to fit a second, manual, pump in the engine bilge without the strum box and relocate the more delicate electric pump, with it's strum box, in the forward area.
When I had a downward collecting strum box I fitted it on spacers, half inch shy of the bottom of the bilge.
 
Thanks... I have more bilge pumps fitted by PO than you can shake a stick at... May take a look at relocating the inlet of one of those...

The strum box leaves a good couple of inches of water, being screwed to a thick piece of ply and then being spaced as well... That'll be next winter's project I think
 
Last edited:
Honourable members may like to consider these 'coarse filter' after-market strum boxes from IKEA....

41729968904_b8a959e1a1_z.jpg


They're about 18 x 12cm ( don't know what that is in Swedish ) and in stainless. They'll cope with socks, matchsticks, small screws, snippings from 'lecky cable, and errant beer-bottle tops. Should you have a more refined collection of bilge detritus, there are finer-mesh alternatives.

BTW, they also function well as substitute for the famous KTL clay flowerpots, of which there seems now to be a national shortage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top